Template:Adjacent communities/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.

How to use and not use this template
In order to ensure consistent usage, the following guidelines apply:
 * This template is for places only.
 * Use same-level jurisdictions or equivalent in the directional fields as in the centre. For instance, when using this template 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. But this should only be used sparingly for major defining features, in particular if there is no adjacent jurisdiction (e.g. sea, lake, etc.).
 * 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 (i.e., immediately before categories; they should also be placed after stub templates).

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
The default title is "Places adjacent to ". To override this, an optional title can be added; use title. This is particularly useful where 2 boxes are needed. For example, Eastern part (includes the poblacion) produces:

Width (nesting/floating box)
By default, the width of the geographic location box is 100%, and is forced to clear below any left or right floating elements. To allow the box to position next to an infobox, image, or other floating element, enter auto on the first line.

Expansion state
Use expanded to force the box to the expanded state, or collapsed to hide it.