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Pietersburg (Polokwane) has been renamed locally , and subsequently nationally. However the validity of name change is being contested in court , and has been a contentious issue for 3 years. The outcome of the court ruling will determine whether or not the town(city) retains the original founding name.

What does it mean exactly to change the name of a settlement in a country with many languages? After all, many, if not most towns and cities have different names in different languages in South Africa. For example South Africa's legislative capital is Cape Town in English, Kaapstad in Afrikaans and SaseKapa in Xhosa.

Most of the city names which have changed in South Africa since 1994 are the same in the various languages, precisely because they haven't had the history or time to develop seperate names. Others which can be translated, are. For example the former Cape province was split in three, and the new names of the three provinces are new in all the languages (eg, Mpuma-Koloni is 'Eastern Cape' in Xhosa - both Eastern Cape and Mpuma-Koloni are new names, since before it was just the Cape and Koloni). Other times common speech still has to catch up with official changes. Pretoria is now officially Tshwane but English and Afrikaans-speakers still call it Pretoria, Zulus still call it Pitoli etc Joziboy 16 March 2006, 16:38 (UTC)

Funny that almost all cities whose "names are changed" by the ANC are actually towns founded by Afrikaners. One wonders, if this pattern is part of a plot directed against this ethnic group. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.241.154.247 (talk) 13:56, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ya, seems pretty clear and the logic is not too obtuse either, considering the history and the demographic why do you seem surprised??? But, as far as wikipedia is concerned the name the government has put on the map is the one that is interesting and a reference to the previous history is encyclopedically in order but no diatribes please...Noserider (talk) 10:02, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am not from South Africa but I think that if in the lead sentence of the article the town name is Polokwane that name should be used throughout the whole article. I don't understand why the lead sentence says that the town was formerly named Pietersburg and then in the rest of the article the name being used is Pietersburg instead of Polokwane. A decision should be made and if the official and current town name is Polokwane then use that name in the whole article, not just the lead sentence. --190.10.76.226 (talk) 17:05, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have studied many South African name changed and even created an article on Afrikaans Wikipedia with ALL the name changed in South Africa (even before 1990), and one of the questions I will answer is that Pietersburg is used throughout the article because, yes Polokwane is official, but I seriously doubt that it's citizens (who are majority white) will use the new name. Another statement is that the demography is only for the local municipality and that the ACTUAL CITY OF POLOKWANE (pietersburg) has a majority white population (which is likely to change when all whites are murdered in the future), but my point is that I suggest we carry on using Pietersburg througout the article because thats the the majority of the city's citizens will call it. Other problems are that white south africans (including myself) are very upset from these name changes, since the guy who it's named after is a national hero, so for all those South Africans out there, how would you like it if Washingotn DC would change to Mokopolokadwinda? My final answer is that yes, most city name changed are directed against Afrikaners, but not all. Butterworth and Lady Frere in the Eastern Cape and Stanger and Ladysmith in Natal. Of course roughly 95% of Name changed in south africa are against afrikaners, which is very negative but not all, and I think this talk page isn't the right place to comment on political issues, send that to the government (not that they will listen).--Bezuidenhout (talk) 19:16, 22 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Furthermore, Pietersburg has become a very ambiguous city, just like Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria etc. there are now many names for different cities, and it's always been like this, only now does the government want to make the 'black' names the official.--Bezuidenhout (talk) 19:19, 22 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

User:Park3r has added a merger notice on 11 May 2009 on both Pietersburg and Polokwane, but have not started a discussion related to that notice.

I believe they should be merged and Pietersburg should redirect to Polokwane for the following reasons

1. It is the official name at the moment
2. The content in both articles are almost identical

--NJR_ZA (talk) 21:35, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In order to clean up any possible misunderstanding, here is an overview of the differences between the two.

• Polokwane is the city previously known as Pietersburg. The South African Geographical Names Council shows that its name was changed from Pietersburg to Polokwane on 2005-02-25. It is located within the Polokwane Local Municipality
• Polokwane Local Municipality is a local municipality than includes not only Polokwane, but also a number of other settlements such as Mankweng, Seshego and others.

In short, Polokwane is the old Pietersburg while Polokwane Local Municipality incorporates Polokwane as well as the surrounding apartheid era black townships, informal settlements and farming communities.

Except for the fact that both the city and the local municipality that serve the greater region has for some reason been given the same name, it is no different than all the other local municipality/central town pairs in the country. One example of such a pair where the major settlement has not been renamed is Nelspruit/Mbombela Local Municipality; Mbombela incorporates Nelspruit as well as other smaller settlement, black townships left over from apartheid and informal settlements.

--NJR_ZA (talk) 08:33, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Polokwane → Pietersburg — Pietersburg is the common English name and should be used as per Wikipedia:NCGN --NJR_ZA (talk) 16:52, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The government has ruled that the city will be renamed Polokwane, however thet does not mean Wikipedia has to as well. Yes the Local Municipality is called Polokwane, however the city itself is still called Pietersburg. That is the English name no matter what the government declares (just look at Burma as such an example). The English speakers of South Africa, that means definitely the English and most-likely the Indians, use the name Pietersburg.

Using Polokwane for the city of Pietersburg makes just as mush sense as iGoli for Johannesburg or iKapa for Cape Town; definitly use Polokwane in Pedi, eGoli in Zulu, and iKapa in Xhosa, but not in English! And all this evidence for Pietersburg is without going into ANC politics, etc! So I propose that the Municipality be known by the name Polokwane and the city by its name of Pietersburg. ChrisDHDR 15:24, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I definitley agree, and this is becuase it's true that the VAST MAJORITY of english speaking South Africans, as well as Afrikaans people WILL call it Pietersburg. Just take a look at the Afrikaans wikipedia article af:Pietersburg.--Bezuidenhout (talk) 18:09, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And just like the Venda use ve:Polokwane since their language is closer to Pedi than Afrikaans, so English uses Pietersburg since it is closer to Afrikaans than Pedi. Also you're not going to force the Zulus to rename zu:KwaXhosa (lit. place of the Xhosas) since the government says it should be Mpuma-Koloni (lit. Eastern Cape): if that's what they call it and always have, so let it be, and don't try to impose something artificial. ChrisDHDR 08:05, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Personally I would prefer to see the official names used. There are already so much confusion generated with all the name changes that it would just simplify the matter by restricting ourselves to the official names.

However, as per Wikipedia:NCGN the correct thing to do is to use the widely accepted English name for the article name and use the same name consistently within the article while listing alternatives (including the official name) in the lead section. Should you feel strongly enough to have this article renamed, follow the instructions at Wikipedia:RM to request a move. I think consensus will probably be to rename it back to Pietersburg, but please follow the process so we can have the consensus documented in order to avoid it being renamed again to Polokwane sometime in the future by someone that was not aware of the discussions. --NJR_ZA (talk) 08:39, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have just noticed that a Pietersburg article also exists, but it's contents is mostly related to the Polokwane Local Municipality. I would suggest we clean that up first and merge the Pietersburg content with Polokwane and Polokwane Local Municipality before Polokwane is renamed to Pietersburg. --NJR_ZA (talk) 08:44, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly agree with everything that has been said here, except that I would prefer the old name, however, I'm not just doing this because I feel 'the past is better' or whatever, but simply because only the black ethnic groups call it Polokwane. Foreign English speaking people (like the British), would probabley pronounce it as Polokwayn, and most maps not only still have Pietersburg on it, but some still don't even have 'Polokwane' in brackets yet. Since black english speaking population is rare, I agree with Polokwane, remember, the official name isn't always the main one, Naboomspruit is an excellent example, where the official name has failed to be recognised, even by the black community. And if Zulus call E. Cape KwaXhosa, then we MUST be able to move this. The official name of the Eastern Cape IS the Eastern Cape, while Zulu wikipedia, ignorantly decides to call it KwaXhosa?? Not even their own ethnic group! Furthermore, who knows? Maybe Polokwane will be changed back 'officialy' - just like Louis Trichardt and Vaalwater. And finalley, if Pietersburg is changed back however, then we must change back MANY towns and cities in South Africa, the most obvious ones being Nylstroom, Potgietersrus and Ellisras.--Bezuidenhout (talk) 09:48, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

However, I disagree with a merger, because Polokwane is still the municipality. This will be the same situation as Londonderry. The official name is Londonderry, but the city article is at Derry, while the area around is called Londonderry.--Bezuidenhout (talk) 10:17, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I did not mean merge all of them. Keep Pietersburg and Polokwane Local Municipality, but make sure that the content currently in the Pietersburg article is merged into the current Polokwane and Polokwane Local Municipality articles before Polokwane is renamed and overwrite the current Pietersburg article. --NJR_ZA (talk) 11:08, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just a little recap: Pietersburg's content will be merged into Polokwane Local Municipality and Polokwane, before Polokwane is moved to Pietersburg (oh and lets just use Pb, Pk, and PLM). However a quick look at Pb's edit history shows that it was moved to Pk (so a negligible edit), then Pb was recreated as a cut-and-copy move of Pk [1][2](so negligible), before getting a couple of minor edits like wording, coordinates, and a false sentence that was later removed (all negligible). I'm gonna ask an admin about this but I think we could simply just delete Pb and move Pk there considering all of Pb's edits are negligible. ChrisDHDR 15:02, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes that is fine, an admin can just delete Pietersburg and move Polokwane over it to complete the wanted move. I agree that for something potentially controversial like this you should make a request at WP:RM. Camaron · Christopher · talk 15:51, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh ok, I see what you mean. Yes, I agree that Pietersburg and Polokwane are twin articles, and one is going to have to become a redirect. But we must keep Polokwane Municipality, simply because this is 'de facto' called that because the only people saying it, will be publishing it or in control of it, therefore they will be calling it that. But I am for the go ahead of a name change :-) --Bezuidenhout (talk) 16:04, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And for those out there who are asking 'but why do other wikis use Polokwane too?' - thats because they followed English wikipedia.--Bezuidenhout (talk) 16:06, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So when can we request them move? And why can't we just simply move it?--Bezuidenhout (talk) 16:14, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You can just move it, but then someone will probably come along at some time and just move Pietersburg back to Polokwane. For something like this that is potentially controversial it is better to go through WP:RM and have the move performed with consensus. --NJR_ZA (talk) 16:42, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A move can only be to a non-existent page or a redirect with a sole edit in its history, something Pb is not. So an admin has to do a special move, which has to be requested at WP:RM. ChrisDHDR 17:38, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am not so sure about this. Pietersburg is how the town is known especially in the Afrikaans community. My suggestion would be that the English Wikipedia uses the original language version of the name (i.e. Polokwane) as English is an international language and local names will probably not be entered into atlases etc. in the future. — Adriaan (T★C) 18:57, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but this is from a perspective of the English South African community, and English isn't a Lingua Franca, so shouldn't be toyed in this way.--Bezuidenhout (talk) 19:45, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So what are we waiting for now? Should I tag Pietersburg with {{db-move}}? ChrisDHDR 15:57, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I think you can go ahead and do that and then do the move once Pietersburg is deleted.There is clear consensus here. --NJR_ZA (talk) 16:11, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

 Done ChrisDHDR 17:02, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Support as per discussions above --NJR_ZA (talk) 16:41, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Support ChrisDHDR 17:38, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Support --Bezuidenhout (talk) 17:39, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose -- The discussions above don't really address the point. Polokwane is the official name, and is already more widely known than Pietersburg. All the local (English) media refer to Jacob Zuma's election as happening at Polokwane, not Pietersburg. It's easy to say "only the black ethnic groups" use the new name. In my experience this is false, but Wikipedia is based on reliable sources, not personal opinions. Internationally, Google finds twice as many article for Polokwane as Pietersburg. Locally, it finds three times as many. Where are the sources to say the old name is in more widespread use? Greenman (talk) 08:41, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]