Territory name
Some was has changed the Panama Canal Zone prior to 1999 to belong to Panama. It belonged to the United States, in 1912 the US paid for the property and the country of Panama transferred title to the US. I was born in Ancon, Canal Zone, United States not in Panama.
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Was not the Panama Canal Zone an unincorporated territory of the United States? I thought it had similar status to Puerto Rico and hence (as not a "state") was not considered a formal part of the United States of America.
Perhaps others could clarify, but I thought the situation was similar to the relationship of the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man to the United Kingdom - territories, but not parts of such.
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The changes in status are outlined in this article. https://fam.state.gov/fam/08fam/08fam030207.html#:~:text=%22SEC%20303.,citizen%20of%20the%20United%20States.
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Isn't the basic question whether or not the name should terminate in "United States"? Or "Panama"? Or???
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territories_of_the_United_States#Unincorporated_organized_territories , the Canal Zone was an unincorporated territory. So far as I can see, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico (and others) are unincorporated territories - none of them have any terminating node on their names after those names that I quote.
Logically, therefore "Panama Canal Zone" should be named just "Panama Canal Zone" and not "Panama Canal Zone, Panama" (for 1903 - 1979) as it is currently in the Standard Places.
Of course, it would be useful if the naming "rules" were published, then I wouldn't need to reverse engineer names to decide (possibly incorrectly) whether it should be "Panama Canal Zone" or "Panama Canal Zone, United States", or ...
NB - we need to be careful with our logic otherwise we'll end up demanding that "Utah Territory" is named just that and not as "Utah Territory, United States". Although hang on ... I can't find the entry for "Utah Territory" to check... (smile, wink, tongue in cheek...) 😉
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