Talk:Köppen climate classification

	Köppen climate classification was a good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones Date Process Result September 26, 2006 Good article nominee Not listed

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To help centralize discussions and keep related topics together, Talk:List of cities by Köppen climate classificationTalk:List of cities by Köppen climate classification redirects here.

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Three cities from each country

The three cities limit for each country is too restrictive with regards to huge countries with lots of cities in the same Koppen zone in different regions of that country (ie USA, Canada, Russia, China), it should instead be one city per state/province for those countries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.230.85.65 (talk) 16:44, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This way we end up with, for example, 15 US cities in Cfa category or 15 Russian cities in Dfb category, the three cities limit was there to prevent the example list from becoming too long.

Now, however we got 30 or 40 examples from every major zone.

Sometime even 3 may sound too much. Do we really need 3 Australian examples for Dfb, when they all have the same characteristics?PAper GOL (talk) 15:04, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I might have an idea related to this: we have 10 cities per climate classification all showing the extents of each classification (ie. "normal" Dfa, bordering on Dfb, bordering in BSk, bordering on Cfa, Dfa/Cfa -3 C isotherm, very high temperature range like Harbin, maybe also just 1 per continent or popular cities, etc) so that people can see how Koppen works on either end. Antarctican2606 (talk) 20:07, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Can you hold on and tell us the exact reason you keep adding locations here? You are getting into an edit war with @Farell37 and this should be stopped, because the effect is major on this article.

These example lists were not made to represent every single location within a climate, it can be diverse in terms of countries, but not for having every location in that country.PAper GOL (talk) 16:44, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Because countries like USA, Russia, China, India are huge and have a wide range of climate types, including within that peculiar climate type (New York City is very different from Dallas even though both are Cfa, Moscow is different from Novosibirsk even though both are Dfb) and instead we have people adding 3 examples from small countries that largely have the same climate type 50.205.228.2 (talk) 15:20, 11 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In this case, this would be unfair on the part of other countries. It's unfair that you have 15 cities from the United States, Russia, Brazil and only 1 city from another smaller country like Germany, Poland, Uruguay, etc. Furthermore, what is the purpose of having many cities, when 3 cities is enough for readers to understand the example of each climate classification? We don't need many cities. Even though they are very different in terms of temperatures, that doesn't take away from the fact that they belong to the same type of climate and what we want is for readers to understand the climate classification, not how extreme it can vary. If this is the objective, you can choose 3 cities, one of them with very extreme and unusual temperatures, but still within that classification.

It is specifically written that you can only add a maximum of 3 cities, so if anyone disagrees, they should use the talk page, instead of adding more cities and not respecting what is requested. Furthermore, including many cities from the same country gives the impression that that climate only exists in that country, which is not true. Farell37 (talk) 16:47, 11 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So cramming cities from a group of small countries with the same climate type is better? Under your rules, we should have 3 cities from Uruguay under Cfa (same number as USA), even though almost all of Uruguay is Cfa and largely similiar in temperature. And it's not unfair when there are far more cities in USA, Russia, Brazil etc than in small countries. 50.205.228.2 (talk) 16:59, 11 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop reverting the edits. It's not my rules, but yet it is what is requested. They belong to the same type of climate, don't they? That's enough. We don't need 1001 different examples from different cities in the same country. Just because it varies more in terms of temperature and precipitation does it have to be included? They belong to the same climate and that's what matters.

Also, I have to investigate further, I want to confirm if there is something wrong here or is it just me that is wrong. Farell37 (talk) 17:07, 11 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is something definitely wrong. I mean this article was not created and expanded in order to have a list of 40+ examples for every subtype. That should be included in a separate article if we want the lists to remain without any restrictions.PAper GOL (talk) 17:11, 11 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No you're not wrong. Three cities per country max for each climate type is reasonable. I'm even inclined to remove all examples because people will continually edit these lists...or start listing multiple (more than three) locations from the same nations. G. Capo (talk) 21:30, 11 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm considering this from scratch, not having previously gotten involved in discussions of the selection of cities. What reader is the target for these lists and what are there take-aways going to be? It isn't going to be a comprehensive resource, because we aren't going to list every city in the world. It isn't to give enough representative cities so that readers can extrapolate to other cities because climate classification doesn't work that way. Is it just to give a few examples and, if so, is 20 or 30 or 40 for a zone taken from throughout the world going to add to whatever benefit a reader will get from 10 examples? It seems to me that coverage is not a useful goal here. If I live in the US Midwest, it isn't any more informative to me to know that a city on the US Atlantic seaboard has the same climate as mine than to know that a city in Kazakhstan does. If 10 US cities are listed, then I still am in the dark about about every other US city besides those 10. If a classification is shared by 50 cities in China, it doesn't make any difference to me whether 1 or 4 or 12 are arbitrarily chosen to be listed here. A small set of representative locations per category suffices, and I don't think that per-country coverage is a useful goal here. Largoplazo (talk) 16:59, 11 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So, your suggestion to put, for example, 50 different examples for each type of climate? This may make sense, but it has its disadvantages and some people may take advantage and add many cities from their country, and then we will not be able to add cities from other countries where the climate is also present in them. This limit of 3 cities per country is there for this reason, to avoid these conflicts. Farell37 (talk) 17:10, 11 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That isn't close to what I suggested. Given that I said that I don't see how 20, 30, or 40 is any more informative than 10, in terms of achieving whatever we expect to achieve by listing any examples at all, then how did you infer that I was suggesting we give 50? Largoplazo (talk) 18:27, 11 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is becoming even more of a major issue, with William M. Connolley joining the series. This article is turning into a battleground.

We must make a decision ASAP about what to do with example lists. I cannot accept any other major edits regarding them before we reach a Wikipedia:Consensus.PAper GOL (talk) 16:09, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In addition to my previous comments, I'm wondering whether it would more useful, rather than listing cities, to list regions. It might be more meaningful to say that such-and-such climate is found in much of the US Pacific Northwest or the area around the Cape of Good Hope or in the Atlas Mountains. Largoplazo (talk) 16:35, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And now the IP user is copying the same lists in the other articles without even asking if they are needed there. Either the lists should go to the related articles with fewer examples.

Or they should be completely deleted and remain in this article. There is absolutely no point in having the same long list in 2 articles.PAper GOL (talk) 09:48, 15 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I chopped out a whole load of stuff just as a sort of example. Really, the existing massive lists were silly. They were never going to be exhaustive, so what was the point? If it was to demonstrate the erudition of editors, that would be silly. If it was so everyone could have a city from "their" pet country, ditto. They are just examples, we only need a few. Whether that few is three, or five, or ten, doesn't greatly matter; but fifty is absurd. It would probably also be good to choose them a bit better than my "take the first three" William M. Connolley (talk) 08:46, 15 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sortable tables would be useful –alphabetical lists are too cumbersome to meet diverse criteria. Does Cambridge, Idaho, pop. 335, need to be included, for example? Inasmuch as it's the sole DSa smidgen in a Rocky Mountain state? Idaho is a state with all of the climate zones except two most polar (we have big mountains, but they're not that big). Slippery slope. Do all the Idahoan zones have municipalities, for that matter? And what of Albany, Springfield, Pierre and Tallahassee? Are we imparting geographic knowledge, or assuming it? Slippery slope here, slippery slope there... We have a climactic trilemma and we might as well get used to it. We have three choices; pick two. kencf0618 (talk) 13:24, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Shan state

Isn't most of Shan state in Myanmar Tropical Savannah? 149.50.211.140 (talk) 16:12, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Excessive examples

I recently boldly deleted the example subsections for this article. Not only are they excessive, but they're too detailed. Their purpose appears to be an indiscriminate collection of information. Anyone is free to discuss this problem. ZergTwo (talk) 18:53, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm inclined to support this, in light of the discussion above (if you didn't notice it, you should read it through) at #Three cities from each country. Without there being a clear (and agreed-upon) point to the selection of examples, it is indeed indiscriminate. If the purpose is, for each zone, to give a sampling of places that are in that zone to help the reader better understand the nature of the zone, it's useless except in cases where the reader already happens to be familiar with the climate in at least one of the selected places. But even then, the reader would probably already have to understand from the description here of that zone what it is about those places' climates that merits their classification into that zone. In that case, the mention of those cities probably doesn't improve understanding any further.

If the point is to be able to look up the classification for a given city, this article isn't achieving that because it lists only a small fraction of the world's cities. That information, for a given city, should be sought from the article on that city.

Finally, these lists are the Wikipedia equivalent of a dust-collector, attracting many edits that add no value—as well as, unfortunately, serving as a shiny object for one particular perennial puppet master whose edits were problematic even before their original account was blocked. Largoplazo (talk) 19:36, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the removal of the example subsections from this article. May I suggest rescuing the material to create List of cities by Köppen climate classification? Such a list article could be a sortable table of cities, their country, lat/long, and Koppen classification. This could support multiple information needs. — hike395 (talk) 01:23, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Would such a list meet WP:NLIST? Largoplazo (talk) 02:05, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt such a list has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources. ZergTwo (talk) 02:49, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The concept of listing cities with their Koppen classification type has certainly been used in the scientific literature.^[1][2][3] I believe these journal articles count as reliable sources for WP:NLIST. Further, several websites have created lists of cities by Koppen classification.^[4][5][6] The idea is out there, this isn't original research. — hike395 (talk) 10:06, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Given that the examples have been restored by Yfyfyffuch, we may not have consensus on outright deletion of the examples (pending further discussion, of course). Splitting the examples into their own list article would follow WP:DETAIL, and may be more acceptable to the editors in favor of keeping the data. Would that be an acceptable compromise? — hike395 (talk) 10:24, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @Yfyfyffuch since they restored the examples and believe it should stay. ZergTwo (talk) 13:47, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No discussion has happened for more than 7 days, so I will be WP:BOLD and revert to ZergTwo's version and create a list article. We can, of course, continue to discuss and improve. — hike395 (talk) 09:11, 4 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Yfyfyffuch and Cheaters33: The examples are now at List of cities by Köppen climate classification, no information has been lost.

@Largoplazo and ZergTwo: I believe the list article does fulfill WP:NLIST, but we can discuss further if you wish.

Does the current state meet with editors' approval, or should we do something else? — hike395 (talk) 09:58, 4 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Uh oh. FromCzech correctly noticed that some of the entries at List of cities by Köppen climate classification are not cities or settlements, so removed them . Cheaters33 then moved the list to List of locations by Köppen climate classification and reverted FromCzech. FromCzech then put a warning notice that the selection criterion for the list is unclear.

I agree with FromCzech. I think we should not have a list of arbitrary locations with climate classification. I cannot find external support for an arbitrary list of locations with climate classification, so List of locations by Köppen climate classification would fail WP:NLIST. A list of locations is likely an indiscriminate list, violating WP:LISTCRITERIA. I would support reverting to List of cities by Köppen climate classification and dropping the non-settlements. — hike395 (talk) 12:15, 5 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

References

1. Naserikia, Marzie; Hart, Melissa; Nazarian, Negin; Bechtel, Benjamin (2022). "Background climate modulates the impact of land cover on urban surface temperature". Scientific Reports. 12: 15433. doi:10.1038/s41598-022-19431-x.
2. Wang, C; Li, Y; Myint, SW; Zhao, Q; Wentz, EA (2019). "Impacts of spatial clustering of urban land cover on land surface temperature across Köppen climate zones in the contiguous United States" (PDF). Landscape and urban planning. 192: 103668.
3. Yang, SQ; Matzarakis, A (2019). "Implementation of human thermal comfort and air humidity in Köppen-Geiger climate classification and importance towards the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals". Theor Appl Climatol. 138: 981–998. doi:10.1007/s00704-019-02856-2.
4. "World Cities by Climate". Kudacity.
5. "World Cities by Climate Type". Voronoi.
6. "Interactive United States Köppen Climate Classification Map". Plantmaps.com.

0°C or minus 3°C?

Do the current and the former map adhere to the 0°C boundary as the boundary between temperate and subtropical climates, or to the minus 3°C boundary? I suppose it's the latter, otherwise Maryland and Virginia would clearly be temperate. 2001:4BC9:1F9F:A32F:80BA:4BF8:F203:D4A (talk) 05:29, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The map is sourced to this paper,^[1] which uses 0C as the threshold. — hike395 (talk) 13:42, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm unsure which map you mean, the one most high showing all Köppen climates cites another source. Would be really weird anyway, because Maryland and Virginia have freezing winters, well sub-0, so they would have been classified temperate, not subtropical like on the map. 2001:4BC9:1F98:6566:3020:990:DD89:D082 (talk) 16:06, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

References

1. Beck, HE; et al. "High-resolution (1 km) Köppen-Geiger maps for 1901–2099 based on constrained CMIP6 projections". Scientific Data. doi:10.1038/s41597-023-02549-6.

Averages

Do all the references to average monthly temperatures mean average of daily lows, average of daily highs, average of daily means, or simply the average, minute by minute or hour by hour, across the whole month without regard to days? Whichever it is, did I miss a note in the article that explains this, or should it be added? Largoplazo (talk) 16:34, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Non-settlements in list

Eonjcn and User:24.2.139.64 keep adding non-settlements to List of cities by Köppen climate classification. From the discussion, above, the list article is only notable because it covers settlements. The criterion for inclusion is at the top of the list article: it only covers settlements. If we add non-settlements, then the list is no longer on a notable topic, and should probably be deleted.

Can we please not add non-settlements to the list? — hike395 (talk) 13:16, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]