I had a discussion this evening, with a guest, about the population of Tokyo. She said the population of Tokyo was 38 million people.I said it was closer to 12 million. She triumphantly showed me the Wikipedia page which said the following.
“The Tokyo Metropolitan government administers the twenty-three special wards of Tokyo, each governed as a city, that cover the area that was the city of Tokyo as well as 39 municipalities in the western part of the prefecture and the two outlying island chains. The population of the special wards is over 8 million people, with the total population of the prefecture exceeding 13 million. The prefecture is the world’s most populous metropolitan area with 35 to 39 million people (depending on definition).“
The wording is confusing but would lead you to believe that Tokyo prefecture has 35-39 million people. But I lived in Tokyo for 9 years. To get 39 million people you would have to include all the towns of Kanto which I have traveled in extensively. There is lots of space between these cities. They are not all Tokyo.
The information on the Tokyo city website makes more sense
“As of October 1, 2009, the population of Tokyo is estimated to be 12.989 million, or about 10% of Japan’s total population, and it has the largest population among all the 47 prefectures. “.
This is certainly not the first time that Wikipedia is misleading. Yet it is always the first source to come up. I prefer to avoid it if I can.
2 comments on “Wikipedia: A Sometimes Misleading Resource”
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Wikipedia isn’t magically misleading – if you know better, you should amend it so that the wording more accurately reflects the reality.
This ‘hockeyISmyLIFE’ player noted some things he had experienced re: advice his teachers have told him about WickiPedia-Wikipedia…Misleading? hockeyismylife8 (96) ranked 19 out of 74 in wikipedia.com
2 years agoIs Wikipedia really that misleading? Every teacher i have ever had says do not use wikipedia, people edit it and put false info on there. It’s really not that easy to put false info on there. I won’t lie, I have tried it and if you put anything false on it, they just change it back to correct information. I was just wondering if anyone has ever found misleading information on wikipedia. http://www.mylot.com/w/discussions/1650416.aspxOf course today, 072510, there are HeadLINED, WICKIleaks yet I think this has to do with another subject altogether-In Disclosing Secret Documents, WikiLeaks Seeks ‘Transparency’http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/world/war-logs.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/world/26wiki.html