Place names and where they came from
A place name is usually a description that stopped being read as one. Translated back, a surprising number of them are literal to the point of bluntness, and several countries are named after individuals nobody remembers.
The New Zealand hill Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu is famous for what?
Having a very long place name
At 85 letters it is among the longest official place names anywhere. The Māori name roughly describes the place where Tamatea, a chief, played his flute to his loved one.
Source: New Zealand Geographic Board register
Which is greener, Iceland or Greenland?
Iceland, by a long way
Greenland is about 80 percent ice sheet; Iceland is largely ice-free with grassland and birch. The names are widely held to have been chosen to discourage and encourage settlement respectively.
Source: Icelandic sagas; Greenland ice-sheet extent from NSIDC
Australia's name comes from a Latin phrase meaning what?
Southern land
From terra australis incognita, the unknown southern land that European geographers assumed must exist to balance the northern continents. The name was applied to the real continent long after the guess.
Source: Etymology; Matthew Flinders popularised the name from 1804
Canada's name is thought to come from a word meaning what?
Village
From kanata, a St Lawrence Iroquoian word for a village. Jacques Cartier used it for the surrounding region in the 1530s and it stuck to the whole country.
Source: Government of Canada, origin of the name
Why is the Pacific Ocean called 'Pacific'?
Magellan found it calm
Magellan named it Mar Pacifico in 1520 after the ferocious strait that now bears his name gave way to calm water. It is in fact the source of most of the world's typhoons.
Source: Antonio Pigafetta's account of the Magellan voyage
Ecuador is named after what?
The equator
Spanish for equator. The line passes just north of Quito, where a monument marks it, though the actual line sits a couple of hundred metres from the original monument.
Source: Etymology; GPS surveys of the Mitad del Mundo site
Which country is named after a person?
The Philippines
Named in 1543 for the then Prince Philip of Spain. Bolivia and Colombia are the other well-known examples, after Simon Bolivar and Christopher Columbus.
Source: Spanish colonial records; Ruy Lopez de Villalobos expedition
Why is The Gambia one of the few countries with 'The' in its official name?
To distinguish it from Zambia
The country is a strip of land following the Gambia River, and the definite article was retained on independence partly to avoid confusion with Zambia.
Source: Gambian government usage; UN member state naming
In 2022 Turkey formally asked to be known internationally as what?
Turkiye
The government asked the UN to register Turkiye, the Turkish spelling, partly to avoid the English overlap with the bird. The UN accepted the change immediately.
Source: UN Secretary-General, June 2022
Which country has the longest official name?
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
At 45 characters it is among the longest in English, though Libya's official name under Gaddafi was longer still, and Thailand's Bangkok holds the place-name record.
Source: UN member state official designations