Template:Geographic location/doc

Usage
Or:

This template provides for a convenient compass-based navigational aid for articles about communities. It allows you to display the communities surrounding the subject of your article.

While this template may be useful for cities, it certainly is redundant for continents, countries and other large geographical areas like states, provinces and islands. In the lead paragraphs of those types of articles, all surrounding countries and features are invariably stated and linked and there's usually a map in the infobox too.

The only required field is "Centre"; the template defaults to an "(enter location)" in the centre of the box message if nothing is entered here (see note below). The fields Northwest (NW), North (N), Northeast (NE), West (W), East (E), Southwest (SW), South (S), and Southeast (SE) are optional. They will be hidden when not used; when values are entered for the relevant parameters, the fields will automatically appear. (Normal Wiki markup can be used in the fields, such as links, colours, and bold/italics.)

The template is coded to handle the American spelling "center". It first looks for a value in "Centre", then in "Center"; it defaults to the "(enter location)" message if both are left blank.

In order to ensure consistent usage, the following guidelines are suggested:
 * Use same-level jurisdictions or equivalent in the directional fields as in the centre. For instance, when using this template for a province, show adjacent provinces; when using it for a municipality, show adjacent municipalities; when using it for unincorporated places, show adjacent unincorporated communities; etc.
 * When a municipality borders an international, provincial, or state boundary, try to use a municipality in that adjacent jurisdiction rather than the jurisdiction itself.
 * Geographical features such as oceans, rivers, lakes, and mountains should be in italics to differentiate them.
 * Avoid cluttering the template with too much detail; it is a navigational guide to provide links to adjacent locations, not a map.
 * Don't use flag icons for every link, see MOS:INFOBOXFLAG. They don't add value and are unnecessarily distracting.

Placement in article

 * WP:LAYOUTNAV specifies that Navboxes, including geography boxes such as this one, are placed after the External links section.

Examples
Here is an example for Ottawa (capital of Canada) demonstrating the guidelines above:

produces:

Not all directions necessarily need to be filled:

produces:

Title option
An optional title can be added, use. For example, this is useful where 2 boxes are needed:

Suppressing the compass icons
By default, the geographic location box includes compass icons on the left and right side of the box. To remove these icons, and increase the amount of space available for useful content, use yes.

Nesting the box
By default, the width of the geographic location box is 80%, and is forced to float below any left or right floating elements. To allow the box to nest next to an infobox, image, or other floating element, enter auto on the first line.