A few Wikipedians have gotten together to make some suggestions about how we might organize data in articles about rivers. These are only suggestions, things to give you focus and to get you going, and you shouldn't feel obligated in the least to follow them. But if you don't know what to write or where to begin, following the guidelines below may be helpful. Mainly, we just want you to write articles!
This WikiProject Rivers aims primarily to describe the Earth's rivers in a consistent and complete fashion. Waterfalls on rivers are also within the scope of this project.
The Importance, Importance=, is set in the WikiProject Rivers template to one of the following: Top, High, Mid, Low, NA. Articles without importance show an importance of ???.
Improve the quality of river articles, striving for featured articles (currently 20 articles), featured lists (currently 8 articles), and Rivers recognized content.
Improve articles by reviewing articles that have been nominated for deletion, merging, splitting or renaming (see #Article alerts).
Improve articles by reviewing and making changes to articles in the #Cleanup listing
Update river articles that need attention, maps, images, infoboxes, etc. Maintenance of river articles includes adding infoboxes, adding importance, adding maps, adding images, and assessing quality
This is a list of people who are members of the project but haven't edited Wikipedia for a year. If you find your name on this list, feel free to move it back to the list of active participants when you return to editing.
River articles may be named "X", "X River", or "River X", depending on location and most common usage. "River X" is used for many (but not all) rivers in the UK and Ireland. "X River" is the norm in the Americas. "X river" (i.e. non-capitalized "river") is not recommended. When common usage does not include the word "River", but disambiguation is required (e.g. the river Inn in central Europe), parenthetical, non-capitalized "river" should be used: Inn (river). In other words neither "river" (without parentheses) nor "River" should be used to disambiguate articles. Country-specific exceptions to this rule should be discussed within WikiProject Rivers and/or that country's WikiProject.
Because there are many rivers in the world with the same name (e.g. the Columbia River has two tributaries named the Salmon River, another flows into the lower Fraser River and one more has been identified in Nova Scotia), not all of which are recent namings in the Americas (e.g. there are four rivers in England called River Avon), the following method of disambiguation is used:
In practice, most rivers needing disambiguation have been identified by an appropriate political entity, e.g., Colorado River and Colorado River (Texas).
Always use parentheses for the disambiguating term for U.S., New Zealand, Australian and continental European rivers, not a comma, e.g., Indian River (Michigan), not Indian River, Michigan, which is actually a town.
If a river with an ambiguous name empties directly into a lake or definable sea, then the name of that body of water could follow in parentheses, e.g., Churchill River (Hudson Bay).
Some rivers have names with multiple spellings which vary with the different countries the rivers pass through. An example would be the Cunene RiverinAngola, which is known as the Kunene RiverinNamibia. Occasionally, a river can have several genuinely distinct names. For example, the Cuando River not only has the variant spelling Kwando, it's also called the Linyanti and the Chobe. The following rules are suggested for choosing a primary name for such a river:
If the river is particularly famous or most commonly mentioned under one name, then choose that name.
If the section of the river that uses a particular name is much longer than other sections, then use that as the name.
If everything else is equal, then choose the name for the section of the river closest to the river's mouth, since generally that is where the river is widest.
It is important that all the alternate names redirect to the name chosen for the article title. This helps prevent the creation of duplicate articles.
The lead section should be a self-contained description including a summary of the most important things that are described in the article. The name(s) – both historic and current – should be in bold. State the location (continent/countries/seaboards), and notable facts about the river, such as longest, second longest, main waterway of a country, etc. For more information see Wikipedia:Lead.
Describe what is known about the different inhabitants along the river, along with a description of the scientific exploration expeditions/efforts. Typically, start from indigenous people and work up from there.
The narrative description of the course should proceed from the main headwater of the river downstream to its mouth, noting direction, size, major tributaries, human settlements, waterfalls, dams, and so forth. This should be at least a paragraph, may be several paragraphs for long rivers. This section can include numerical data on length, volume, drainage basin, etc.
For the largest one or two tributaries of the river, a short description of them should be added (perhaps under a "Tributaries" subsection) with "main" links.
When the source of the river is complex, such as a network of smaller streams, or a spring and cave system, consider if the source would be better described in its own section or sub-section separately from the course section. In simpler cases, such as when a river merely originates from a lake, discuss in the course section.
Include information about the geography and distribution of drainage basins, the location of mountain ranges, valleys, major cities, etc. Mention climate of the different areas of the watershed, and information about water quality, etc.
In this section describe the dams, diversion canals, bridges and culverts, roads, and other engineering projects associated with or with a big impact on the river.
The evolution of some rivers has been well explored (e.g., the Missoula Floods and their effect on the Columbia River). Such information should be placed here, with a suitable discussion of all POVs when possible.
A countless number of rivers have been used as means to transport people, goods, etc., and are still used so today. All such information should be described here. Stylistically, this can be a good segue from history, connecting past uses of the river to present-day uses.
List the tributaries, starting from the mouth and going upstream. Add important subtributaries in sublists. Major tributaries should be links, if there is a reasonable chance of article content, minor tributaries should be just names.
List the cities and towns along the river, also in upstream order.
List dams, locks, waterfalls, rapids, if there are more than a couple and/or they're not mentioned in the lead or course narrative.
There should be at least one picture, preferably a typical view. Important rivers should have additional pictures illustrating their notable features. Maps of the river's course and of its watershed are highly desirable.
Every river article should include a map. Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps gives advice on the conventions to be used. The map should be included in the Maps section of the {{Infobox river}} template. Pushpin maps showing the location of the mouth of the river should be included if there is no tailored map for the specific river. Route maps are optional, a sample can be seen at {{River Medway map}}.
Every river article should include geographical coordinates for at least the mouth or mouth and source of the river. Wikipedia:WikiProject Geographical coordinates/Linear gives advice on the positioning of these coordinates. The coordinates of the source and mouth are included in the Infobox river template:
Every article should have a category. If a river is restricted to one country, list it in Category:Rivers of country, e.g. Category:Rivers of Germany. If it runs through several countries, list it in each country category.
A country-level category may be subdivided by region, province, department, state etc. (e.g. Category:Rivers of California.)
When a river is placed in a subdivision category(s) it may or may not be also placed in the parent category. This should be done consistently, so a given parent category is either empty or holds a complete list of rivers.
{{Parent cat}} may be added to the head of the parent category to provide links to reports that list all rivers in the child category, and that report any discrepancies.
Rivers may be categorized by other characteristics, e.g.
The {{River|class=|importance=|attention=|mapneeded=|needs-infobox=}} template banner is available to add to the talk pages of river articles and gives:
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Rivers, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Rivers on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.RiversWikipedia:WikiProject RiversTemplate:WikiProject RiversRiver articles
An article can be rated by quality and importance; for example, using {{WikiProject Rivers|class=Stub|importance=Low}}. For detailed instructions on quality grading, see: WikiProject Rivers/Assessment. There are many articles that still need to be assessed. You may help us to assess them, please see Category:Unassessed River articles for the complete list.
The template {{Infobox river}} can be used for representative images and basic information about a river. See the template's documentation for instructions, examples and blank versions of the template to start with. You can see it in action on River Scheldt.
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