Is the Isle of Wight bigger than Rutland at low tide? This question has been having a bit of a battle on the Isle of Wight page at Wikipedia. The Ranger is interested in this question, for, although like much of Wikipedian debate it involves dancing on the head of a pin, it also raises some interesting questions and sheds light on current proposals.

Some place in Rutland

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There are two issues here - firstly, does the Island get physically bigger at low tide? Obviously it does, whereas Rutland does not. So at some states of the tide the Island quite likely is bigger in area than Rutland, if one were to measure it instantaneously and record it. There's not likely to be much dissent over that bare fact.

However the second, more controversial and interesting issue is how the area of a county is measured.

In England, county administrative boundaries are measured from a zone known grandly as 'The Extent of the Realm' (ref: Ordnance Survey). In practice this is usually Mean Low Water except where some specific alteration has been made, for example to build a pier or include a sea-fort.

The UK Office of National Statistics says:

‘Extent of the Realm’ is typically co-incident with Mean Low Water. However, the statutory boundaries of some administrative areas can include piers and jetties (some no longer existing) and sea areas bounding off-shore islands e.g. Flatholm in the Bristol Channel.

This boundary does not move and is not affected by the tide. There's a good reason for this - imagine you wanted to submit a planning application for a pontoon on a shoreline. Do you submit it to the local planning authority (when the tide's out of course), or to the body responsible for the marine environment, the Marine & Fisheries Agency (when the tide's in)? Obviously a daft situation, and to avoid it the boundary is definite, and you know which authority is responsible (usually). The acknowledged imperfections in this system are one of the reasons for the present Marine Bill to be proposed, when this arrangement may be revised. But at present it stands.

So for administrative purposes, the boundary does not change with the tide. Now, it may well be correctly argued that this is a fairly arbitrary limit to the county of the Isle of Wight. However, it's equally arbitrary where the boundary of Rutland begins and ends. The Ranger says that it's essentially a comparison not dissimilar to 'How long is the coastline of Britain', which, whilst useful in general, becomes more meaningless the greater the level detail used. So he'd rather not have it on the Wikipedia page about the Isle of Wight.

Others disagree. There's a lively debate about this very issue going on over at Wikipedia at the time of writing - and The Ranger's there in the thick of it (parts of this article he's reused so you might recognise it). Pop along and see the fun, or join in if you agree - or disagree!