Showing posts with label native names. Show all posts
Showing posts with label native names. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Swaziland's New Name in All Six UN Languages

Topographic map of Eswatini (Swaziland), showing terrain, rivers, bordering countries, and capital cities.
Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland. Based on this map by Htonl and NordNordWest.

"Eswatini" Not Only For English

Last year, we told you about the small African Kingdom of Swaziland's name change to "Kingdom of Eswatini", which it turns out has caught on more quickly than usual in the media. Unlike Côte d'Ivoire, Cabo Verde, Timor-Leste, and Czechia, whose previous English names are still arguably dominant today, Wikipedia editors have found that most sources switched rapidly from Swaziland to Eswatini after the name change.

In our first article, we promised to let you know when the new name came through in the other official languages of the United Nations (since the UN acts as a sort of formal registry for countries' official names). Well, here they are:




Monday, July 16, 2018

All About Swaziland's Name Change (With Maps)

Topographic map of Eswatini (Swaziland), showing terrain, rivers, bordering countries, and capital cities.
Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland. Based on this map by Htonl and NordNordWest.

Swaziland's New Name

If you follow PolGeoNow on Twitter, you already know that the small, southern African country of Swaziland was renamed "Eswatini" this April. The full English name of the country, previously "Kingdom of Swaziland", has also been changed to "Kingdom of Eswatini".

The rename was first announced by the country's king on April 19 - his 50th birthday. (Some media incorrectly reported that April 19 was also Swaziland's 50th anniversary of independence. The country is indeed celebrating its 50th this year, but the actual day of the anniversary is September 6.)

The change was apparently effective immediately: A purported copy of the legal order making the new name official, also dated April 19, was posted on a Swaziland news blog in May, with some validation from other sources.

Sunday, January 19, 2014

ICYMI: Cape Verde's Name Change

In the following weeks, PolGeoNow will be publishing several short "in case you missed it (ICYMI)" articles on events from 2013. This is news that we weren't able to cover when it first broke, but that we thought our readers might still want to know about.

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Topographic map of Cape Verde, now known officially as Cabo Verde
Cape Verde, now officially Cabo Verde (click to enlarge). Map by Oona Räisänen/Wikimedia (CC BY-SA) (source).
By Evan Centanni

Cape Verde Changes Official Name
If you read our article on the year 2013 in political geography changes, you've already heard about the change to Cape Verde's official English name. But since keeping track of country name changes is one of the primary missions of Political Geography Now, we are now presenting this in-depth report on the topic.

Friday, November 2, 2012

5 Countries You've Never Heard of (by Their Native Names)

Think you know your world geography? Maybe you know most or all of the world's countries...by their English names. But in their own official languages, many nation-states are called something completely different. Maybe you remember España, Deutschland, or Nippon from your high school language class - but there are a lot more than that! See if you can guess these five....

Misr
Also known in casual speech as Masr, this country is considered heir to the ancient kingdom of Kemet.  Locals trade in pounds, but drive on the right side of the road. As a country, Misr ranks 127th in GDP per capita, but boasts the world's 10th-largest active military. Bizarrely, its independence in 1922 was declared not by the nation's own people, but by another country. One of the world's oldest forms of Christianity is headquartered here, where it was founded by Saint Mark in the 1st century.