Talk:List of international trips made by presidents of the United States

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This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

President Barack Obama Travel Redundancy

Now that seperate articles have been created for Obama's travels; a detailed table and list should not be kept on this page. This should be kept solely as an overview of Presidential travel (notably firsts and overview facts) with the details kept here: List of presidential trips made by Barack Obama — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.172.19.51 (talk) 04:24, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Error by State Department Historian

A very nice catch by tocino who found a trip that was overlooked by the State Dept. Historian. The November 2008 visit by President Bush to Peru for the 20th APEC Summit http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/trvl/pres/5218.htm Pacomartin (talk) 19:44, 30 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That trip is easily overlooked considering there was a historic election going on around the same time. The election was taking up all the news. --Tocino 21:15, 30 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Opening

Greetings from Y!A-land.

I'd recommend rewriting the lead in prose form, rather than as a bulleted list. Also, WP style for articles is to include the title in bold in the lead paragraph, such as:

Presidential international travel has been increasingly a part of the role of the US president since the 1940s, when...

You should also probably change the name of the article to something like International travel by the US president, since there are many, many presidents in the world.

Regards, HCV--192.18.43.225 (talk) 21:53, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I followed the suggestion. Most of this data came from the State Department web site. The introductions are gathered from biographies, and news articles.Pacomartin (talk) 10:05, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Uncited commentary and speculation

I've just removed a large quantity of what appears to have been speculation and editors' personal commentary. None of this was cited, and I don't think that it was suitable for inclusion. Nick-D (talk) 06:40, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Color coding

What does the color coding in the tables indicate? It's not at all intuitive. A little legend would be very helpful. -- btphelps ^{(talk) (contribs)} 00:46, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to know that too. --------------------------------------------------Pgecaj (talk) 05:31, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The trips are color coded to unite multiple stops on one trip and the majority of stops in one trip. Yellow indicates a trip mostly to Europe, silver is a trip mostly in Asia, orange is a trip mostly to Latin America, and green is a trip mostly to sub-saharan Africa.Pacomartin (talk) 16:11, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was moved to List of international trips made by the U.S. President Aervanath (talk) 03:39, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

International travel by the United States president → List of international trips made by U.S. Presidents — I'm not sure if using the full "United States" (as used in United States House of Representatives or the acronym (as used in U.S. state) is better, ditto with the capalisation for the "p" in "presidents". The move is to improve clarity, and bring this article in line with WP:SAL. YeshuaDavid • Talk • 21:30, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I believe that "by the U.S. President" is better than "by U.S. Presidents", because there is only one president at a time, and the article does not cover trips made by the Presidents once they have left office. 199.125.109.124 (talk) 02:03, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- But once they've left office, they're no longer presidents. — AjaxSmack 00:54, 18 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Technically that is true, but it is the custom in the United States to always refer to them as "President Clinton", "President Carter" for example, for the rest of their life. In other words, once they attain the title, they never relinquish the title. 199.125.109.135 (talk) 04:51, 18 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Generally support since the text to list ratio is pretty low. — AjaxSmack 00:54, 18 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. In any case, "United States" should be used instead of "U.S." Jafeluv (talk) 08:03, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- On that I disagree. Abbreviations are commonly used to allow titles to be shortened. If the subject of the article was the U.S., the name would be United States, and not U.S., but when the name is secondary to the subject, such as 2009 WNBA season, it is normally abbreviated. Here it is "trips" or "travel" that is the subject, all the rest are just qualifiers to specify who and where. 199.125.109.58 (talk) 19:55, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Trips to pre-independent parts of the British Empire

Hi, I was looking at some of the early trips listed on this page and I noticed that the United Kingdom has been placed in the "Country" column for places like the Bahamas and Jamaica before they gained independence. This is incorrect. While they were under the sovereignty of the Crown, they were never parts of the UK; Crown colonies never had that status. I would suggest replacing the reference to the UK with the name of the colony, perhaps adding a note claryfing that the territory was part of the British Empire if that's felt to be required. 84.92.117.93 (talk) 23:38, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

While I appreciate your comment, the Historian of the State Department chooses to list these destinations under the United Kingdom. I feel that wikipedia should follow the lead of this source document. One wikian (tocino) did find an omission in the official list. http://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/travels/president/united-kingdom Pacomartin (talk) 11:13, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Who cares what the State Department says? The Bahamas have never been part of the United Kingdom. john k (talk) 00:57, 20 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Additions/corrections to the map of Presidential travels

The following countries need to be colored in on the map:

Senegal was visited by Bill Clinton in 1998 and by George W. Bush in 2003
The Gambia was visited by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1943 (it was listed under "United Kingdom" because it was not independent until 1965).
Algeria was visited by FDR in 1945 (it was listed under "France" because it was not independent until 1962).

Mtminchi08 (talk) 07:21, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The pope's flower garden?

The President's helicopter had landed in Vatican City in the middle of the pope's flower garden in the night just hours before Christmas Eve for their late night meeting - is this vandalism? -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 02:09, 30 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the helicopter landed on any flowers but it did land in the "Vatican Garden" as seen in the caption for a photo found here:

http://www.heritage-images.com/Preview/PreviewPage.aspx?id=2322287&licenseType=RM&from=search&back=2322287&orntn=1

The line you quoted was probably written by someone engaging in some hyperbole rather than vandalism. Probably best to change it.

Mtminchi08 (talk) 02:20, 30 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Table colors

The style of coloring of the tables is not consistent between sections. Some have just the first column shaded, others have the dates and still others have the location. This seems very distracting as a reader and should be changed to select one, simple style and apply it to all sections. — MrDolomite • Talk 11:24, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A recent change to the article

Recently some of the headers in the George H.W. Bush wikitable were changed from English to some other language. As this is the English language Wikipedia and the subject of this article is the travels of the President of the United States, the article itself should be written in American English.

Mtminchi08 (talk) 00:32, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Why is colour-coding in table cells unexplained?

The article needs a key to the use of background colour codes in table cells. The meanings of the colours are not immediately apparent, and why should readers be forced to waste time attempting to deduce the cryptic intentions of discourteous article editors? — O'Dea (talk) 20:19, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Map - Myanmar/Burma and Cambodia?

According to the map, no sitting US president has visited Myanmar/Burma nor Cambodia.

Um...

What's going on? 90.152.64.139 (talk) 09:52, 23 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ethiopia and Kenya have been visited by President Obama as well. As stated above on 23 January 2011, there are a few other additions which need to be made:

Senegal was visited by Bill Clinton in 1998 and by George W. Bush in 2003
The Gambia was visited by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1943 (it was listed under "United Kingdom" because it was not independent until 1965).
Algeria was visited by FDR in 1945 (it was listed under "France" because it was not independent until 1962).

Mtminchi08 (talk) 05:14, 31 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Reformatting Statement

I have made several substantive changes to the formatting of this page: changed the section order from reverse-chronological to chronological made the lists in each section non-collapsible and changed non-list material in each section from bullet points to prose (WP:STANDALONE); changed the dating of all list entries (MOS:BADDATEFORMAT, MOS:DATETIES); removed boldfacing (MOS:BOLD), shading, and a column from all lists to simplify them; and tweaked the introduction slightly. Drdpw (talk) 21:35, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Map removed from Introduction

I have removed the map from the introduction as it is inaccurate in several ways. Made in November 2010, and not updated since, the several nations visited for the first time by President Obama during the last 5+ years are not shaded-in to show that they've been visited. Similarly, The Bahamas, Algeria, and The Gambia are not shaded-in to indicate that they've been visited by a US president. The lighter blue shading for former Soviet Union nations not visited since their departure from the USSR is misleading; they should be gray like the other unvisited nations (as no US president ever visited those former SSRs). Given that there are now several maps showing where individual presidents travelled, one that's inaccurate doesn't need to be in the introduction. Hopefully someone will update and fix the map; then it would be a useful image. Cheers Drdpw (talk) 23:41, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

New study on the determinants of US presidential visits

It would be great if this article would incorporate this study (https://isq.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/02/19/isq.sqv008). Here's an ungated working paper version version (http://home.gwu.edu/~esaunder/ISA2014.Lebovic&Saunders.pdf). I'm too busy to edit it in but just thought to let you know about how this page could be improved. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 17:53, 7 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I just took a few minutes and looked at this study report. The authors make some good observations; however, given that this is a list page and not a regular article page, I'm not sure how much information from it could be incorporated before this list became weighed down by too much prose; this page is already quite large as it is. You may wish to consider posting your message on the talk pages for Foreign policy of the United States and Foreign relations of the United States. It likely would provide the editors of those articles some seeds for future edits. Cheers. Drdpw (talk) 20:57, 7 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

List of international trips made by the President of the United States

I am moving this question here from my user talk page (Drdpw (talk) 00:59, 26 March 2016 (UTC)):[reply]

Why did you undo two hours of work on this page without even a comment? It was much clearer with another column.Pacomartin (talk) 00:42, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Pacomartin, I did include an edit summary when I undid your edit and did so again just now when I undid your revert of my edit. The current format of this list article and several related list articles is the consensus format. The form and content here and on the other pages is the result of several hours of work by myself and a couple other editors. Why do you think the list is "much clearer" with another column? I disagree, and so we need the input of other before a change is made. I hope we can have a constructive conversation on this issue. Cheers. Drdpw (talk) 01:17, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The format of this article is the format I developed back in 2009 when I began this article. Take a look at the history. What it lacks now is any way to get a feel for why the POTUS travels. If you have a sortable column you can see which summit meetings he goes to, sorted by type. For instance does he go to all the NATO summits? Does he got to all the G-20 summits? How about G-7/8 summits? How many has he skipped? You can get all of that with another column (keeping in mind that some summit series take their turn in the USA).Pacomartin (talk) 01:53, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I see your point, I'm just not sure that adding another column is the best way to go. Why complicate the table unnecessarily and why refine the table in a way that produces 2 columns that will have multiple blank cells? That said, you've touched on a question I've had, which is how could the list/information in that 5th column be presented in a more user friendly? I think stating with key words: "attended", "state visit", "official visit", etc. works to provide the usefulness you're describing, but perhaps there's a way to say it better and still keep everything in a single column. I'll be interested to read what other think. BTW, the List of international presidential trips made by Barack Obama article has a graphic list of the multilateral meetings that Obama has participated in, so the questions you posed above can be found (for Obama at least, until similar pages are created for previous presidents) on that page. Drdpw (talk) 02:50, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I like the graphic list of the multilateral meetings that Obama has participated in. So I will remove my request to add another column to the table. When I created this page I put the most recent POTUS at the top and let you work backwards in history. Somebody changed it along the way. People are naturally most interested in the current POTUS.Pacomartin (talk) 15:31, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Noted. Also, regarding your point about the article's original reverse chronological order format, I changed it as per WP:SALORDER. Drdpw (talk) 18:11, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Six errors in the map for Franklin D. Roosevelt

There are six errors in the map for the Franklin D. Roosevelt section.

The United Kingdom and France are indicated as having been visited by FDR.

FDR never visited the United Kingdom itself. He travelled to several British colonies and overseas possessions but did not visit the British homeland.
FDR never visited France itself. Again, he travelled to several French colonies and overseas possessions but did not visit Metropolitan France.

Four countries which FDR DID visit need to be indicated on the map.

Algeria - he visited November 20–21, 1943 and February 18, 1945
French West Africa - he visited Dakar, the capital of French West Africa, on December 9, 1943
Morocco - he attended the Casablanca Conference here from January 14–25, 1943
Newfoundland - he visited August 17–20, 1939 and August 9–12, 1941

Mtminchi08 (talk) 01:45, 7 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Done - Note: I shaded only the Senegalese part of FWA. Drdpw (talk) 16:59, 19 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for making the corrections. Mtminchi08 (talk) 01:49, 22 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Three errors in the map for Harry Truman

There are three errors in the map for the Harry Truman section.

Truman did not visit the western part of Germany (the future West Germany)
Truman did visit the eastern part of Germany (the future East Germany). He attended the Potsdam Conference in the city of Potsdam.
Mexico was visited by Truman March 3–6, 1947

Done - Done a week-or-so ago, but thought I'd note it as so. Drdpw (talk) 17:03, 19 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Also, why is the United Nations Honour Flag used to represent the 1945 visit to Germany? The Potsdam Conference was held in the Soviet occupation zone. I find it rather difficult to believe that Stalin would have had a UN flag flying over the territory that the Red Army had just conquered a few months earlier.

As seen at http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/soviet-us-and-british-flags-flutter-on-flagpoles-at-news-footage/502274412 the Soviet, US, and British flags were flying at Potsdam in 1945.
The note at https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_fi.php?MediaId=219 mentions "Under the flag that flew over the White House". That would be the Stars & Stripes.
When Truman, Churchill, and Stalin sat down at the Conference table, "Soviet Prime Minister Josef Stalin is on the left, seated opposite the Soviet flag on the table; Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov is on Stalin's right. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill is seated on the right, opposite the the British flag on the table; Clement Attlee is seated two to the left of Churchill. President Harry S. Truman is near the center, opposite the United States flag" per https://www.trumanlibrary.org/photographs/view.php?id=13218

No sign of the United Nations Honour Flag in any of these sources. The occupying powers flew their own flags. Mtminchi08 (talk) 01:46, 7 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Until this February the Nazi flag was there. That was changed to a white flag. That was replaced by the anachronistic occupation German merchant flag. I made the change to the honor flag, which seemed slightly less anachronistic. Germany, which had not yet been divided into occupation zones at the time of the Potsdam Conference didn't have a flag at the time. So, what should we use... White flag ... No flag ... Other flag? Drdpw (talk) 02:35, 7 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No flag at all is probably the best option. The occupation zones were ratified at Potsdam but had been drawn up the previous year. Potsdam itself was clearly under Soviet control but using the Soviet flag may confuse some readers into thinking the conference took place in the USSR. Germany wasn't quite Terra nullius at the time but it had no national emblems in the aftermath of VE Day. Mtminchi08 (talk) 02:54, 7 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Mtminchi08, I have changed the Truman trips file @ Wikimedia Commons to reflect that Truman did visit Mexico while POTUS, that Germany had not yet been partitioned into East and West when he visited Potsdam, and that Newfoundland was not part of Canada when he visited Ottawa.

Also, after toying around with no flag and 3-flags (UK & US & USSR) for Truman's 1945 visit to Germany, neither of which looked good to me, I suggest that a white flag be used. (unless someone wishes to create a combined UK-US-USSR flag icon?) Drdpw (talk) 22:59, 9 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for correcting the map of Truman's travels. As for the flag issue regarding Germany, I don't really want to belabor the point so either a flag of surrender or no flag at all are both acceptable. Mtminchi08 (talk) 02:09, 22 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Error in the map for Richard M. Nixon

The map for Nixon shows Vietnam as a single country. It was not unified until 1976 which is after Nixon's resignation. Nixon visited South Vietnam on July 30, 1969 but he never visited North Vietnam.

Mtminchi08 (talk) 18:05, 16 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Republic of China and common name

A few things to consider in regards to this edit stating "At the time, Republic of China was commonly used". While the Taipei government's official name has always been "Republic of China", the name commonly used in the West was "Formosa". As seen in:

Chicago Tribune front page headline regarding Eisenhower's visit on June 18, 1960 "Ike in Formosa"

Robert L. Beisner's book Dean Acheson: A Life in the Cold War (2009) "I have used 'Formosa' throughout the book because that was the common usage in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s."

John F. Kennedy's appearance on Meet the Press October 16, 1960. "our treaty commitment, which now binds us to the defense of Formosa"

The United States Congress passing the Formosa Resolution of 1955

By the time, the Beijing government replaced the Taipei government in the United Nations, the name "Taiwan" was being used. As seen in the Chicago Tribune on October 26, 1971 "Taiwan ousted"

Mtminchi08 (talk) 00:03, 27 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Error in Map of Dwight D. Eisenhower

He visited West Germany on August 26–27, 1959. But it's not marked in the map.--84.161.137.80 (talk) 19:30, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Can we add the total of travels to a map?

Seeing a map where every US president has already visited would be really cool and informative I think, anyone can do this?