Talk:Hamilton Square, New Jersey

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Unincorporated area or CDP?

I'm a little confused; whilst attempting to add an infobox with a pushpin map, I noticed that the article states that Hamilton Square, New Jersey is a CDP whereas in the Mercer County navbox, it is listed as an unincorporated community and Mercerville-Hamilton Square, New Jersey is listed as a CDP. I would therefore appreciate a clarification as to whether this article refers to the CDP or the unicorporated community as I shall not be able to create the pushpin map if not as I won't know which location this article refers to: U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Hamilton Square, New Jersey or U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Hamilton Square, New Jersey. Derfel73 (talk) 16:34, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also take a look at Talk:Colonial Terrace, New Jersey – Tinton5 (talk) 19:46, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You've hit the tip of the iceberg here. My understanding is that the Census Bureau decided that they would split almost all of these paired CDPs like Mercerville-Hamilton Square, New Jersey so that there are separate statistics for both Mercerville, New Jersey (2010 population 12,320) and Hamilton Square, New Jersey (12,784) for the 2010 Census. So as of the 2010 Census, describing Hamilton Square as a CDP is accurate, though as of the 2000 Census it was not a CDP other than as part of a pair with Mercerville. CDPs often bear some reasonable connection to reality on the ground, but because there are no hard and fast boundaries as there are for municipalities, the definitions of such areas are often arbitrary and they reserve the right to modify the geographic definition of CDPs at will, expanding or contracting a CDP from one census to the next. The 2010 Census data is out there, but in a very different access format from the 2000 data. A majority of the 566 municipalities don't have updated 2010 Census statistics and those should probably be first priority. We probably need to have a wider discussion on a WP:NJ basis as to what do with all of the new CDPs and then what to do with article for Mercerville-Hamilton Square, New Jersey and all of the other CDPs that have been split into parts. Alansohn (talk) 20:07, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]