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I have asked a similar question about the standardisation of Chinese places names. A previous question talked about how governments are able to give the official place names (for example: 星加坡 vs 新加坡 and 漢城 vs 首爾).

My question now is that some places have Chinese names that are different depending on the regions where they are being used. For example, 悉尼 is being used in Hong Kong and in vast areas of the chinese world, except in Taiwan, where the form 雪利 is being used to refer to Sydney.

Furthermore, 琉球 is being used to refer to Okinawa instead of 沖繩, which is equivalent to its Japanese name. 琉球 Is the historical name of Okinawa, referring to the Ryukyu kingdom.

宿務 Vs 宿霧 for Cebu, Philippines.

My question is, why do these confusions exist? Didnt the governments of these cities advice the “correct name” to be used in the same manner Seoul and Singapore did?

Are there any more place names like this?

cgo
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  • Seoul used to be called 漢城 in Chinese. In 2005, the Korean government asked the Chinese name of Seoul to be changed to 首爾. So, in a really short period of time, the conversion was done. One no longer saw 漢城 in newspapers. – joehua Oct 16 '21 at 01:28

3 Answers3

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  • Different regions governed by different governments. Translations in Taiwan usually doesn't follow Chinese Mainland

  • Different regions have different dialects. A transliteration in Mandarin might sound completely different in Cantonese

We still don't have a complete Standardization of place names in the Chinese language.

If a foreign country declares its official Chinese transliteration, it will be the standard, If a foreign country doesn't declare its official Chinese transliteration, then it is up to the Chinese regional governments to decide

Becky 李蓓
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Tang Ho
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Taiwan, ROC (Republic of China), and China, PROC (People's Republic of China) have been separated by two political systems since 1949, each side has its own choice of words and names of foreign cities. Both sides couldn't even settle on the name of China's Capital City - Taiwan refers to the city as 北平, while China calls it 北京.

Prior to 1997, Hongkong was governed and influenced by the British. Also, the majority of the Hongkongese came from a few Southern Provinces of China that each has a very distinct cultural heritage and spoken language, so not surprisingly the different choice of words.

r13
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  • 北平 is an old name, actually very old. It was the capital of Ming dynasty which changed the name from 北平 to 北京 to reflect its actual status. The capital of the ROC is 南京. So, 北京 was reverted to 北平. All these changes of name is rooted to the word 京, which means capital. In Ming dynasty, 北平 became the capital. So, its name was changed from 北平 to 北京. When ROC selected Nanking as its capital, 北京 was changed back to 北平. – joehua Oct 16 '21 at 01:16
  • Interesting argument. We do call Tokyo "東京", but in no time we call 洛陽 as "洛陽京" or長安 as "長安京", Taipei as "台北京", though they have been the capital city of different dynasties. I don't think 南京 was named after ROC made it its capital city, what was the original name then? – r13 Oct 18 '21 at 03:28
  • Some facts about 南京: "The city first became a Chinese national capital as early as the Jin dynasty. The name Nanjing, which means "Southern Capital", was officially designated for the city during the Ming dynasty, about six hundred years later.[c] Nanjing is sometimes known as Jinling or Ginling (金陵, "Gold Hill") of the eponymous Ginling College; the old name has been used since the Warring States period in the Zhou dynasty." – r13 Oct 18 '21 at 03:38
  • I said if the name ends with 京, then, it's the capital. I didn't say if it's the capital, then its name must end with or contain 京. Can you tell the difference between the two? I said "When ROC selected Nanking as its capital" but I never said this was the first time Nanking became the capital, did I? These are very simple logic. they shouldn't have caused any confusion. – joehua Oct 19 '21 at 11:09
  • 明's capital wasn't 北京 - 明建都 京师應天府(后改为留都"南京"). The logic does not always work, which "京" is PRC's capital now? :) – r13 Oct 19 '21 at 13:50
  • 1368年，朱元璋建立明朝，以应天为京师，当年明军攻入元大都，南京第一次成为大一统王朝的京城（之前六朝、五代十國楊吳/南唐及南宋均為偏安江南的政權），次年建筑南京城，迎来历史上的第二次高峰。 – r13 Oct 19 '21 at 14:20
  • Who was the last emperor of the Ming dynasty? 崇禎, right? Where did he hang himself? 煤山, right? Where is 煤山? It's in Beijing, right? And your point is??????? – joehua Oct 19 '21 at 14:52
  • 1842年鸦片战争后，清政府在南京下关江面的英国军舰上签订中国近代史上第一个不平等条约《南京条约》. 1911年12月29日，各省代表在南京选举孙中山为临时大总统，中华民国建立。1912年元旦，中华民国临时政府在(江宁府轄轄區)南京成立，改稱政府所在地为南京府。不久后，袁世凯将中华民国首都迁往北京。1927年4月18日南京国民政府成立，定南京为首都，置首都特别市。 – r13 Oct 19 '21 at 14:52
  • I hope the history of "南京" is getting clear now. Will be back to talk about "北京" if I can find good material. – r13 Oct 19 '21 at 15:00
  • 民國二十六年（1937年）七七事變後，北平被日軍佔領，將北平改名為北京。民國三十四年（1945年）大日本帝國宣佈向同盟國投降，中國抗日戰爭結束。同年8月21日第十一戰區孫連仲部接收北京，並恢復原名北平。

    為與中國共產黨對決，於民國三十六年（1947年）11月在蔣中正的命令下於北平成立華北剿匪總司令部。民國三十八年（1949年）1月，傅作義與中國共產黨達成和平協定，率中華民國國軍25萬守軍投降，1月31日，中國人民解放軍和平進入北平市，宣告“北平和平解放”。

    1949年9月27日，中国人民政治协商会议第一届全体会议通过《关于中华人民共和国国都、纪年、国歌、国旗的决议》：“全体一致通过：中华人民共和国的国都定于北平。自即日起，改名北平为北京。”同日，北京市人民政府成立。

    而中華民國退守台灣後，當局則沿用北平這一稱呼，直至1990年代逐步被北京取代[2]。

     – r13 Oct 19 '21 at 20:49
  • Zhu Yuanzhang (朱元璋) was a penniless peasant and Buddhist monk who joined the Red Turbans in 1352; he soon gained a reputation after marrying the foster daughter of a rebel commander. In 1356, Zhu's rebel force captured the city of Nanjing, which he would later establish as the capital of the Ming dynasty. In 1402, 明成祖朱棣demoted Nanjing to a secondary capital and in 1403 announced the new capital of China was to be at his power base in Beijing. – r13 Oct 19 '21 at 21:16
  • 永乐十九年正月，明成祖朱棣正式移鼎燕京，以燕京为京师，稱為「北京」。金陵应天府则作为留都，称南京。明仁宗及明宣宗的时期，因皇帝個人的喜好因素，北京之京师地位一度降為君主暫幸之行在，复稱金陵应天府為南京，明英宗親政後，正統七年（1441年）時才恢復燕京京师的地位。 The above seems to suggest that both 北京 and 南京 were named during Ming Dynasty. – r13 Oct 19 '21 at 21:41
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For Singapore, one of the official languages there is Chinese, it makes sense that they would have a standard name in Chinese.

For Korea, they used to use hanja (Chinese characters) as their writing system long ago, and it's still found in many historic texts and places, so most of the place names in Korea would have old hanja versions as well. However, these characters are pronounced differently in Korean than in Chinese. Seoul was officially renamed from the traditional Chinese character version to the hangul version (keeping pronunciation the same) and later the Chinese version was officially renamed to conform to the pronunciation, rather than using the old name.

As Japan still uses kanji officially, the common practice is to use the same characters in Chinese, though with different pronunciations. Hence, there isn't a need to have official Chinese names that are different.

For the case of 沖繩 vs 琉球, they actually refer to two slightly different things and both of them are used in Japanese as well. Okinawa refers to either the Okinawa island, or the Okinawa prefecture, which governs over the island chain which includes Okinawa, whereas Rykyu refers to either the old Rykyu Kingdom or the Ryukyu island chain, a geographical name.

As for place names that are transliterated to Chinese from languages that don't used Chinese script or have any historical connection to China, the standard names are chosen by government organisations in China and in Taiwan separately. It might be easiest to view it as two different language standards, 普通话 vs 國語. Some of these names were chosen a long time ago, when Mandarin wasn't as widely spoken, so they may have been renamed recently to reflect the pronunciation in Mandarin, rather than Cantonese or something else.

Curiosity
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