Editing Stoke-upon-Trent (section)

==Name==
On 1 April 1910, the town was [[Federation of Stoke-on-Trent|federated into the county borough of Stoke-on-Trent]]. By 1925 the area was granted [[City status in the United Kingdom|city status]].

Confusion can arise over the similarity of this town's name to that of the larger city. If the new borough had to be named after one of the original towns, the main reason for using "Stoke" is that this was where the new town's administration was sited, which in turn was because Stoke had the main transport links.{{citation needed|date=January 2021}}

The river, canal, mainline railway, and trunk road passed through the centre of Stoke.  Stoke also had the main railway station (other towns were connected by the "loop" line) making the name of Stoke perhaps the most familiar outside the area. It made sense to name the city after the oldest and most commonly recognised name, even though it was not then the most significant town from a commercial perspective. (The commercial centre was Hanley, elevated and therefore relatively free, for most of the year, of the city's smog and smoke.){{Citation needed|date=May 2007}}

===Renaming proposals===
Owing to the confusion between the town of Stoke and the larger city, there have been various calls, mainly amongst business leaders and academics, to rename either the town or the larger city. Proposals for the renamed town include Old Stoke and Stoke Town. There are also [[Hanley, Staffordshire#Decline of name|proposals]] to rename part of Hanley to Stoke-on-Trent City Centre.