Talk:Ruhengeri

Naming and population rank

Musanze or Ruhengeri? The lede currently starts with "Musanze (formerly Ruhengeri)." w:Ruhengeri says "Ruhengeri, also known as Musanze or Muhoza, is the third largest city in Rwanda." (So that's another issue: Wikivoyage is currently claiming it's the second largest city in the country.) Which name is most used in English at this time? And can we resolve the question about the population rank of the city, too? Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:46, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

The city now commonly known as Musanze was previously called Ruhengeri until the year 2000. As of 2024, it is the second-largest city in Rwanda. Fikiri-jenly (talk) 09:01, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

If you search for "Musanze" on Google Maps, it may also show the name "Ruhengeri (or Musanze)." This suggests that "Ruhengeri" might still be more familiar to some people. However, the city is now commonly referred to as "Musanze" in everyday use.

Thank you!. Fikiri-jenly (talk) 09:05, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Muhoza it's one of the sector of Musanze District. Fikiri-jenly (talk) 09:08, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

If so, you should correct the Wikipedia article. I'm not sure you've addressed the question of which name is most commonly used in English. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:08, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Looking at Q246145, seems a majority of articles (including enwiki) use Ruhengeri with the main exceptions being cawiki and cebwiki (which don't matter too much in this context anyway). I'd say we keep the current name for now. --SHB2000 (t | c | m) 01:55, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Looking around with streetview (images from october 2023) you see the name as Ruhengeri at the entrance of the city. That makes me think that Ruhengeri is stil the official name of the city. At Wikipedia of Rwanda, Ruhengeri occurs only once, but Musanze does not appear there at all. --FredTC (talk) 05:59, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Is this about the ethnicity profile of the inhabitants having changed? The year 2000 might hint at changes due to the 1990s disaster. Indeed, in the Wikipedia there is an unsourced claim that "This has to do with the adopted policy of renaming Rwanda cities, which was done to eliminate memories of the past and to install new administrations in the country." It seems the name could be a politically sensitive thing. The best we can do, I think, is to be very conservative until we get convincing evidence of the facts. Just not updating things in a country few of us know (Oh dear, when was this written?) is better than jumping on the wrong train – this might be a good and accepted change, but better safe than sorry. –LPfi (talk) 09:20, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

We are going to have to edit the article, either way, because though it's named Ruhengeri, Musanze is used as its name in the article's text repeatedly. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:50, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Ruhengeri seems to have been changed to Musanze in much of the article by IP edits in 2009, in connection to addition of info but with no edit summaries. Fikiri-jenly says that the town is now called Musanze, previously Ruhengeri, which seems to align with the unsourced Wikipedia statement I quoted above.

I would very much like us getting more information – is the aim to 'eliminate memories of the past' (the genocide, I assume) something we should support, or is it a way to forcefully impose the culture of new rulers?

For the traveller, the important things are that both names are mentioned in the first sentence (as both are in common use), that there is a redirect and that the confusion is explained in Understand.

What name we use for the article and in the article text is less important for the traveller, but may be sensitive. We don't know that the new name would have come to dominate locally or in English texts, so until we get that evidence, I think we should not rename the article, and thus we should change the usage in the article back to Ruhengeri.

–LPfi (talk) 20:08, 28 November 2024 (UTC)