Wikivoyage:Capitalization

Shortcut:
WV:CAPS

Editors are encouraged to use consistent capitalization in articles. However, don't knock yourself out "correcting" capitalization – there is more important work to be done in plunging forward and writing the world's most complete and accurate free travel guide!

Further guidance on capitalization can be found at Wikipedia's Manual of Style.

When to capitalize

• Proper names of specific places, persons, terms, etc., are capitalized in accordance with standard usage: Wales, Tel Aviv, Three Great Gardens of Japan, etc. Most adjectives derived from proper names should be capitalized, e.g. the English people, the Indonesian language.

• The names of months, days, and holidays are capitalized: June, Monday, Fourth of July. Seasons are not capitalized (a hot summer, winter hours).

• Full names of institutions, organizations, companies, etc., are proper names and require capitals. Generic words for institutions, organizations, companies, etc., do not take capitals (University of Mumbai but the university).

• Political or geographical units such as cities, towns, and countries follow the same rules: as proper names they require capitals, but as generic words they do not.

Incorrect (generic): The City has a population of 670,000.

Correct (generic): The city has a population of 670,000.

Correct (title): The City of Durban has a population of 670,000.

• Internet has an initial capital letter (rather than "internet")

When not to capitalize

• Initial capitals or all capitals should not be used for emphasis. Use boldface or italics instead. See Wikivoyage:Creating emphasis.

• Use sentence case capitalization, not title case capitalization, in all section headings. See Wikivoyage:Section headers.

• Points of the compass (north, southeast, etc.), and their derived forms (northern, etc.) are not generally capitalized: 9 km south of Lima.
  • They are capitalized only when they form part of a proper name, such as Northwest Territories or South Korea.
  • Where the name of a region has attained the status of a proper name (as with the North of England, Southern California or Western Europe), then the direction word is capitalized. Otherwise, it is not, as with eastern Spain or southwest Angola. If you are not sure whether a region has attained proper-name status, assume it has not.

• Do not capitalize "the" in the middle of a sentence when referring to the Netherlands, the Philippines, or the Bronx, but do capitalize it for The Hague.

• The word century, whether used as a noun (in the 19th century) or an adjective (16th-century paintings) is never capitalized unless it is part of a proper name (e.g., Century City).

• The two words of national park when used as a noun should never be capitalized (e.g. Réunion National Park is a French national park, not Réunion National Park is a French National Park). This applies to similar words like national monument, national recreation area, provincial park etc.

Corporate shouting

Wikivoyage does not use "corporate shouting", i.e. the practice to write the name of the company in ALL CAPS, which is considered touting.

See also

• Wikivoyage:Abbreviations
• Wikivoyage:Spelling