Talk:George Town (Malaysia)

Food

One of the more interesting things about Penangites is the fact that whenever they meet outside of Penang, a topic that will certainly be raised almost every time is discussing about where to eat in Penang, and which location is best for some particular dish...

Like, say, Laksa Penang, for example? --(WT-en) Evan 00:07, 15 Feb 2005 (EST) (who loves laksa)

See Penang#Eat for an (all too brief...) discussion of the cuisine. What this article needs is places to eat! (WT-en) Jpatokal 00:14, 15 Feb 2005 (EST)

The Eat section gives me a headache as a very very poor representation of what Georgetown has to offer and I'm tempted to rewrite the whole lot of it. There's a handy brochure by the tourism board that lists and maps out the famous hawker food stalls and of course the many hungry Malaysian food bloggers, and there's no way this guide will live up to those standards, but it could do a lot better in pointing out more local food rather than Thai and Western.

Also, I think the Bakeries section could be moved to Buy, as they function more as shops as compared to cafes, with no place to sit and eat. -- torty3 (talk) 12:35, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Please plunge forward! I regret that since I haven't been to Penang in over a generation and visited only briefly, I won't be able to help much. Is that brochure also online? I think that since it's an official publication, we might be able to justify summarizing and linking it, though that's arguably against our policies. Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:48, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

I hadn't been back for over ten years myself, and it has changed enough. It's interesting to read it again with fresh eyes to spot gaps in the coverage, and Penang's an even better place with friends and relatives to bring one around. The brochure isn't online, but it should be worth a mention, maybe in the visitor's centre bit, and I can add more based on local advice. -- torty3 (talk) 09:13, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Great. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:33, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Georgetown vs George Town

Google hits (Dec.07):

• site:tourismpenang.gov.my - George Town = 134, Georgetown = 64
• + penang - George Town = 102,000, Georgetown = 127,000
• + malaysia - George Town = 264,000, Georgetown = 468,000

Auto Date entry for all entries

Hi,

i have a suggestion to make.

About all the entries that are going into wikivoyage, i suggest that there should be a auto date entered into every article.

For example in the sleep section, whoever describes the guest house will have an auto date entered showing the last modified or article entered date.\

There are some backpackers which are closed down in penang georgetown.

Ferry to Sumatra?

The "Get out" section mentions Sumatra and the map shows it is reasonably close and "By air" says there are flights to Medan, but are there boats as well? Pashley (talk) 03:45, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Huge city?

It escaped my notice that George Town has encompassed the entire island since 2015. It would be a fairly simple matter to simply make all the articles about places on Penang Island into districts and turn this article into a huge city article. Is there any reason not to do this? Also, in the Penang article, shouldn't places like Ayer Itam be described as "neighbourhoods", rather than "towns"? Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:43, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

I second this suggestion. News articles suggest that the city's jurisdiction actually encompasses an area larger than Penang Island itself. Articles should be created for some of the city's suburbs like Pulau Tikus & Teluk Bahang; each has several destinations of note. Ohmskaya russkikh (talk) 13:12, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

I suppose we should have a formal districting discussion, so I'll post the appropriate template on the article (when I figure out what it is), but it doesn't sound like much would need to be done other than to change the format of the "Districts" section, make this officially a "Huge city article template", make the component articles officially districts with district article templates, with full listings in this article going to a "Central George Town" district article (or whatever the most appropriate name is), and choosing colors for each district in a static map. Not all of that has to be done the same day. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:02, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

If basically the whole island's population is within the George Town metropolitan area, I guess we may as well create a huge city article. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 00:23, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

When I look at the map, though, it seems that Balik Pulau is separate from George Town. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 00:24, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Apparently, since 2015, it no longer is. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:55, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Interesting. That makes it a tough one for me. The satellite images show clearly that Balik Pulau is separated from George Town by a mountain range. I'm inclined to make George Town a huge city and include Air Itam, Bayan Lepas, and probably Batu Ferringhi in it, but keep Balik Pulau as a separate city. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 01:02, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

There are hills, but there's also a coastal route, and Penang is not a huge island. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:10, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

There are issues with this article and others on the Island of Penang but I am not convinced making the whole island a city is the right solution. Is is more that 20 km (12 mi) north to south and some of the towns are distinctly separate from one another. Probably not enough locations to have a separate region for Penang Island, so keep the state of Penang region as is. But do need to move the listings from George Town to the town articles closer to their location. --Traveler100 (talk) 06:29, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

This is irrespective of the fact that since 2015, apparently the entire island and then some is actually part of George Town? Granted, there is at least one precedent for not respecting such a political fact - the entire island of Oahu, Hawaii is politically part of Honolulu. Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:48, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

I do not see any point to making Georgetown a huge city with the island's other towns as districts. It may be that administratively, but why should travellers care? Nor do I think we much need a separate reion article for Penang Island. We have a decent article for Penang and a redirect to a section of it at Penang Island; I think that is enough.

What would be useful, I think, would be trying to get the Penang article to Guide so it could become DotM. The main requirement would be bringing all the child articles up to Usable so the parent could become Guide. See Wikivoyage:Destination_of_the_month_candidates#Metro_Cebu for an example where this CotM->DotM sequence has been tried before. Pashley (talk) 13:00, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

We already have a framework for that: See Talk:Penang#Status chart. The places in Seberang Perai present a greater problem in bringing them up to Usable status. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:08, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

The George Town article should be made into a huge city article, as recent sources confirm that the city's jurisdiction covers the entirety of Penang Island (an area of 293km²), plus a handful of surrounding islets such as Jerejak Island, bringing the city's total area to 305km². From an aerial point-of-view, Balik Pulau may look separate, but in actual fact, it still forms part of George Town and comes under the governance of the city's local authority. Balik Pulau is not even a city to begin with; it only has a population of less than 25,000, whereas cities in Malaysia tend to contain at least 200,000 inhabitants each.

When looking at Malaysian cities in general, one should note that almost every city in Malaysia covers a larger area beyond the original settlement itself. Take Kuala Lumpur (KL), for instance; the original settlement of KL was centred around the confluence of the Klang and Gombak rivers, but the city of KL now encompasses surrounding suburban areas like Bandar Tasik Selatan, Kampung Baru, Taman Tun Dr Ismail, etc. Same goes to Johor Bahru (JB), where the city's boundaries have expanded beyond the original settlement of JB to include outlying suburban areas like Tebrau & Plentong. Ditto to Iskandar Puteri (which includes the outlying suburb of Skudai) and Malacca City (which also covers the adjacent areas of Teluk Mas and Tanjung Kling). The suburbs within these aforementioned cities are also mentioned within these cities' articles. In this regard, George Town as a Malaysian city should not be treated any differently.

I would suggest that, aside from turning Air Itam, Batu Ferringhi, Bayan Lepas and Balik Pulau into district-level articles, new articles should be created for other notable suburbs/neighbourhoods like Pulau Tikus, Teluk Bahang and Tanjung Tokong. Each of these aforementioned areas contains numerous sites of interest. Pulau Tikus has various places of worship, including Siamese & Burmese temples; Teluk Bahang is famous as an eco-tourism site and Tanjung Tokong, an upmarket suburb favoured by expats, has a marina-cum-shopping mall & a floating mosque. Ohmskaya russkikh (talk) 03:07, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

It's true that Wikivoyage doesn't base decisions on political boundaries of cities, counties, etc. unless doing so is perceived by a consensus to be most useful to the traveller. So that's the argument you should make if you'd like to try to convince a consensus, as right now, there is a developing consensus against turning this article into a huge city article encompassing the entire island of Penang and then some. And my suggestion would be to start "city" articles about Pulau Tikus, Teluk Bahang and Tanjung Tokong, even though they are not officially cities. Another thing to keep in mind is that on Wikivoyage, the term "city" is used loosely to encompass any populated area; see Wikivoyage:Geographical hierarchy#Cities (you may have to scroll up a bit for that section, as the link is behaving strangely, at least for me). Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:20, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Hmmm, I'm profoundly unfamiliar with the area, but my hot take is to prefer the way it is. Although districtification would make sense; however, if new articles were added as Ohmskaya suggests above. I guess my main question is about the amount of content you envision each page having. How many new listings would be added? How much of the Get in/Get around content is duplicated between the Penang and George Town articles? How much could be merged? It's free to create unlimited pages, but a readers attention is finite. Striking the balance between informing and overwhelming is key.

I guess I'd agree with what others have mentioned, if someone does have the time and energy, I'd prefer to harness that gumption to polish up the articles relationships with one another. (Penang as more aspirational & planning content; while Batu, Balik, Banyan, etc being more boots on the ground, where do I try this dish info.) If we want to come back and add more articles great, but it doesn't "feel" to me like the whole island is a city. (Not that I know what I'm talking about) --ButteBag (talk) 01:05, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

As no-one has responded to ButteBag in 2½ years, is it reasonable to conclude that their proposal to leave things as they are has been accepted, and we can remove the district discussion template? Ground Zero (talk) 00:31, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

I guess so, but this article is pretty long. A cursory look-through seems to show that only a few of the listings are clearly movable to other city/would-be-district articles outside of Georgetown's city centre. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:51, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

It is our 121st-longest article, and shorter than Milwaukee, Ann Arbor, Ottawa, Oakland, and Swansea. I know that "other things exist" is not a good argument, but given the lack of interest or knowledge to do anything about it, I doubt that things will change. I don't agree that it is a good idea to go back to saying that a discussion is underway on districting and then not discussing it. Ground Zero (talk) 01:03, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

"I guess so" isn't a disagreement. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:06, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

I misread that. I thought there was a "but" in there. My apologies. Ground Zero (talk) 01:18, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

There is a but, which indicated a concern but not a disagreement. No need for an apology, though. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:22, 25 May 2021 (UTC)