This article provides a collection of the etymology of the names of administrative divisions. This page generally only deals with regions and provinces; cities and other localities and features may appear listed under the individual country, with a link below.
South Australia: located in the south-central region of Australia
Tasmania: named after Abel Tasman, who sighted the island in 1642; originally named by Tasman as Van Diemen's Land, after Anthony van Diemen, the colonial governor who commissioned Tasman's voyage
Burgenland (German; Hungarian: Várvidék; Croatian: Gradišće): originally called Vierburgenland, "Land of four Burgs (castles)", a name suggested in 1919 from the endings of the four former counties forming the state: Preßburg, Wieselburg, Ödenburg and Eisenburg. In 1922 Austria ceded Ödenburg to Hungary and dropped the numeric prefix Vier- ("four"); the remaining three counties became Burgenland.[13]
Carinthia, German Kärnten: etymologically related to the early Slavic medieval principality Carantania (Slovenian Karantanija, German Karantanien); a suggested etymology references a Celtic term for "stone" or "crag", while a popular etymology holds that the name means "land of friends"
Lower Austria, German Nieder-Österreich: the lower part (lower in height) of the original territory of Austria ('the eastern country'), as opposed to Upper Austria; also called Österreich unter der Enns "Austria below the (river) Enns"
Salzburg: after the city of Salzburg (literally "salt castle"), which takes its name from the salt mines that existed there during the Middle Ages
Styria, German Steiermark: after the castle of Steyr; in the high Middle Ages, it formed a march of the Holy Roman Empire, hence -mark
Upper Austria, German Ober-Österreich: the upper (physically higher) part of the original territory of Austria, as opposed to Lower Austria; also called Österreich ob der Enns "Austria above the (river) Enns"
Vienna, German Wien: from Celtic Vindobona (vindo "white" + bona "foundation, fort")
Vorarlberg, literally "in front of the Arlberg", takes its name from the Arlberg, a mountain (German: Berg) with a high mountain pass, characterised by Arle, a local German term for "mountain pine".
Belgium
Regions
Brussels, Dutch Brussel, French Bruxelles (the capital city, outside any province; also Belgium's third region): medieval Dutch broek 'bog' + zele (in many place names in the Low Countries="habitation using thatching")
Flanders, Dutch Vlaanderen, French Flandre(s): plural of a terrain type; or "flooded land"; or a compound Flemish vlakte "plain" and wanderen "to wander".[14] The name extended from the historical county (about half lost to French and Dutch neighbours; the rest roughly made up two administrative provinces, East Flanders and West Flanders; in French les Flandres, plural) to the whole Dutch-speaking, majority part of Belgium (French la Flandre, singular)
Wallonia, French Wallonie: from the (Romanized (Germano-) Celtic, now Francophone) Walloon people: as in many European countries, so named by Germanic neighbours; meaning: "strangers". Compare "Wales" below.
Provinces
Antwerp: from the city of Antwerp, the province's capital, which may derive from the Frankishanda ("against") and a noun derived from the verb werpen ("to throw").
Brabant (now divided for administrative purposes into Flemish Brabant and Walloon Brabant): The name in Carolingian times appeared in Latinised form as pagus Bracbatensis, from bracha "new" and bant "region". See also under the Netherlands.
Liège: of disputed etymology. The name Liège (also used by the city of Liège, the province's capital) may have the same origin as the ancient name of Paris, i.e. Lutetia; the German form, Lüttich, suggests this. Liège and Lutetia would both derive from Latinlucotætia, "marsh" or "mud". Another suggestion derives the names from Latin Lætica, "colony", or Leudica, "free". Alternatively, the Latin Leudica meaning "public place" may have given rise to the WalloonLîdje and thence to Liège. Note that the name appeared in written form as Liége (with an acute accent) until the 1950s.
Limburg: Derived from the castle-fortified town of Limbourg, which in turn was derived from "lint" "dragon" and burg "fortress". See also under the Netherlands.
Kampong Thom Province: According to legend two large snakes came to the port and it was named Kampong Pos Thom which means Large Snakes' Port in Khmer but passed through the years it was simplified to Kampong Thom which means Large Port in Khmer
Adamaoua: From the Adamawa Emirate, a vassal state of the 19th-century Sokoto Caliphate. Adamawa comes from the name of its founder, Modibbo Adama. The suffix -wa is used in the Hausa language to signify the collective identity of 'people of' that place. Therefore, Adamawa means "the people of Adama".[15]
Credited to Italian navigatorGiovanni da Verrazzano, who first named a region around Chesapeake Bay Archadia (Arcadia) in 1524 because of "the beauty of its trees", according to his diary. Cartographers began using the name Arcadia to refer to areas progressively farther north until it referred to the French holdings in maritime Canada (particularly Nova Scotia). The -r- also began to disappear from the name on early maps, resulting in the current Acadia.[16]
Possibly derived from the Míkmaq word akatik, pronounced roughly "agadik", meaning "place", which French-speakers spelled as -cadie in place names such as Shubenacadie and Tracadie, possibly coincidentally.[17]
Roman numerals originally identified the regions in order from north to south (except Santiago). With the establishment of Arica-Parinacota and Los Ríos Region in 2007 the numbers no longer reflect the regions' positions.
Los Ríos Region (Spanish XIV Región de los Ríos): refers to the river systems of Valdivia and Bueno and to the nickname of the city of Valdivia. The name may also reflect the name of Los Lagos Region (Spanish for Region of the Lakes) from which Los Ríos split away.
Aisén Region, sometimes also spelled Aysén (Spanish XI Región Aisén del General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo): The name Aisén may come from the Huilliche word achen, meaning "to crumble". Another theory suggests that the Chonos culture used the word to mean "going more to the interior", in reference to the Fjord of Aisén that stretches east from the Moraleda strait.
Guizhou (貴州) – lit. "Expensive Province", actually refers to Mount Gui
Hainan (海南) – "South of the Sea", in reference to the Qiongzhou Strait, for the Hainan Island. Similarly, Leizhou Peninsula, which faces Hainan across the strait, is also called Haibei, meaning "North of the Sea".
Jiangxi (江西) – lit. "West of the [Yangtze] River" (although it is to the Yangtze's south), actually contracts the earlier "Western Jiangnan" (Jiangnanxi, "Western Region South of the River")
Jilin (吉林) – lit. "Lucky Forest", actually a Sinification of Manchu girin ula (吉林乌拉) meaning "Riverside"
Liaoning (遼寧) – lit. "Distant Peace", actually refers to "Peaceful Liao", the region around the Liao River
Inner Mongolia (內蒙古) – from the perspective of Beijing, as distinguished from "Outer Mongolia", which became independent in the 20th century (Mongolia itself from "Land of the Mongols"; Mongol from the Mongolian for "brave")
Shaanxi (陜西) – "West of the Pass(es)" or "West of Shanzhou". Shanzhou is named in reference to the three former channels of the Yellow River at Sanmenxia, previously supposed to have been cleft in the rock by Yu the Great and now submerged by the Sanmenxia Dam
Sichuan (四川) – lit. "Four Rivers", actually refers to the four circuits of the region during the Song Dynasty – Chengdufu, Kuizhou, Lizhou, and Zizhou; erroneously believed to refer to the four rivers in the region—Min, Tuo, Jialing and Wu.
Tibet – from Tibetan: བོད་, Wylie: Bod (Böd) in the form Mtho-Böd 'High Tibet' or Stod-Böd 'Upper Tibet', or from Old TurkicTöbäd or Töpüt 'the heights'; the modern Chinese name 西藏Xizang means 'Western Tsang", from the Sinification of Tibetan Tsang, the central-southern region of Tibet
Macau – for the Cantonese Chinese pronunciation of 媽閣 (Maa5gok3), the name of temple of the sea goddess A-Ma,[citation needed] or A-Ma Gao (阿媽澳, "Bay of A-Ma").[22] The Chinese name of Macau (澳門) means "Inlet Gates". Also the English transcription is Macao.
Czech Republic
Map of the Czech Republic with traditional regions and current administrative regions
Historical regions
Czech Republic/Czechia (Česko in Czech). From old CzechCzech (nationality), later written Čech. Until 19th century referred predominantly to Bohemia only, later the meaning has been extended to all Czech lands (Bohemia, Moravia and Czech Silesia). Traditionally traced to a Forefather Čech, who brought the Czechs into Bohemia.
Bohemia: "Land of the Boii", a Celtic tribe of the region. The ultimate etymology of Boii is uncertain, but has been connected to Proto-Indo-European roots meaning "cow" and "warrior"
Bornholm: The Old Danish form, Burghændeholm shows derivation with the suffix -und from burgh "fortress": "provided with a fortress", later combined with holm, "island".[23] The similarity with the Germanic Burgundian tribe whose name has the same etymology and which may or may not have originated in Scandinavia, can be purely coincidental since the derivation is quite basic in meaning.
Copenhagen (Danish: København): The Old Danish form, Køpmannæhafn[24] shows the older genitive plural køpmannæ of køpman, "merchant", coupled with hafn, "harbor", producing the meaning "merchants' harbour".[24] It has entered English via the (Low) German Kopenhagen.
Faroe Islands (Danish: Færøerne, Faroese: Føroyar): From Old NorseFæreyjar – literally, "Sheep Islands", from their dense population of sheep. Another theory suggests that the lexeme fær instead derives from Celtic and means "distant".[citation needed]
Greenland (Danish: Grønland): From Old NorseGrœnland, literally, "green land"; so named by Erik the Red to induce settlement there. Greenlandic-speakers use the name Kalaallit Nunaat, meaning "Land of the Greenlanders"
Jutland (Danish: Jylland; German: Jütland): From Old Danish Jutland,[25] derived from the tribal name of the Jutes, combined with land "land".[25]
Zealand (Danish: Sjælland): Old Icelandic Selund, Latin rendering Selon, Old Danish Sialand.[26] A somewhat later form, now poetic, is Sjølund. The oldest forms with the single l and the original vowel reveal that the name is derived with the suffix -und (cf. Bornholm above) from Old Danish *sial meaning either "seal" or "furrow": "provided with seals" or "provided with furrows", referring either to populations of seals or inlets from the sea.[26] The suffix has later been reinterpreted as the lexeme land "land.[26]
Note: Estonianmaakond means "county" and maa means "land". Counties given here without the suffix -maa take their names (and etymologies as given here) from their capitals.
Hiiumaa: from Estonianhiis – "holy grove", or hiid – "giant", meaning "land of holy groves" or "land of giants".
Ida-Virumaa: "Eastern Virumaa" – see Virumaa below
Jõgeva: from Estonianjõgi – "river" (Pedja river) and possibly vahe – "between" (since the old estate stood on an island in the river), meaning "between rivers".
Põlva: from Estonianpõlv – "knee". According to a legend, a virgin was once bricked in a church wall on her knees. According to another version, the Tartu-Võru and Kanepi-Räpina roads form a curve, shaped like a knee.
Pärnu: named after Pärnu river, that drains into the sea at Pärnu
Valga: from German family names de Walco and de Walko. According to another version, from Old Estonianvalketa – "white".
Virumaa: from several Finnic languagesvirukas – "big" or "strong", or vire "sharp" or "penetrating" (for wind), meaning "land of the strong / big" or "land of the sharp / penetrating winds". (In Finnish, the words for Estonia and Estonians derive from Virumaa – Viro and virolaiset.)
Finland
Helsinki: The Swedish name Helsingfors (IPA:[helsiŋˈforsː]ⓘ or [hɛlsɪŋˈfɔʂː]ⓘ) represents the original official name of the city of Helsinki (in the very beginning, in the form 'Hellssingeforss'). The Finnish language form of the city's name probably originates from 'Helsinga' and similar names used for the river currently known as Vantaanjoki, as documented as early as the 14th century. Helsinki (pronounced with the stress on the first syllable: [ˈhelsiŋki]ⓘ), refers to the city in all languages except Swedish and Norwegian. Helsingfors comes from the name of the surrounding parish, Helsinge (source for Finnish Helsinki) and the rapids (in Swedish: fors), which flowed through the original village. The name Helsinge possibly originated with medieval Swedish settlers who came from Hälsingland in Sweden. Another possible derivation looks to the Swedish word hals (neck), referring to the narrowest part of the river, i.e. the rapids.[27]
Ostrobothnia (or in Swedish: Österbotten) – "Eastern Bothnia". Bothnia is a Latinization of Old Norsebotn,[28] meaning "bottom". The name botn was applied to the Gulf of Bothnia as Helsingjabotn in Old Norse, after Hälsingland, which at the time referred to the coastland west of the gulf. Later, botten was applied to the regions Västerbotten on the western side and Österbotten the eastern side ("East Bottom" and "West Bottom"). The Finnish name of Österbotten, Pohjanmaa, or "Pohja"-land, gives a hint as to the meaning in both languages: pohja means both "bottom" and "north".
Most modern French départements take their names from local geographical features: usually rivers, occasionally mountain ranges or coasts. Thus most such names have a self-evident immediate origin. The traditional provinces and regions (of any period) often bear names with richer but more obscure histories.
Alsace – from LatinAlsatia, a Latinised form of the Germanic name that also yields Old High German El-sasz (modern German Elsass), allegedly meaning "foreign settlement" (according to the OED article on "Alsatia"[29]); or "settlement on the Ill River"[citation needed]
Artois – from LatinAtrebatensis, adjectival form derived the Belgic tribe Atrebates, whose name comes from *ad-treb-ates, meaning 'inhabitants', based on the Celtic root treb- 'building', 'home' (cf. Old Irish treb 'building', 'farm', Welsh tref 'building', Middle Breton treff 'city', toponyms in Tre-, Provençaltrevar 'to live in a house or in a village').[30] According to Alexander MacBain (d. 1907),[31] the name Atrebates parallels the Irish aitreibh, 'building,' Early Irishaittreb, 'building,' and Welsh adref, 'homeward'. McBain states that the Celtic root treb corresponds to Latin tribus, 'tribe', and to English thorpe, 'village'.[31] MacBain reconstructs *ad-treb- as the Proto-Celtic form of Early Irishaittreb.[31] The name of the main city of Artois, Arras (Atrecht in Dutch) derives directly from the tribe's name Atrebates, so Artois properly means "territory of Arras".
Basque Country (French: Pays Basque, Basque: Euskal Herria) – derived from the ancient tribe of the Vascones via the medieval Duchy of Vasconia and a County of Vasconia, split from it. The Basque name derives from Euskara (the autochthonous name of the Basque language).
Labourd (Lapurdi): from the Roman city of Lapurdum (modern Bayonne).
Lower Navarre (French: Basse Navarre, Basque: Nafarroa Behera, Benafarroa). From the medieval Kingdom of Navarre, itself of disputed etymology (either Basque nabar: "brownish, multicolor", also "ploughshare"; or Romance nava: "river bank"; or Basque naba (valley, plain) + herri (people, land)). Compare Kingdom of Navarre#Etymology
Soule: deformation of the original Basque name Zuberoa or Xiberue
Burgundy (Bourgogne) – part of the land settled by the East Germanic Burgundians, who possibly originated on the island now known as Bornholm. Speakers of Old Norse knew the island as Borgundarholm, and in ancient Danish especially the island's name appears as Borghand or Borghund; these names relate to Old Norse borg "height" and bjarg/berg "mountain, rock", as the island rises high from the sea.[32] Other names known for the island include Burgendaland (9th century), Hulmo / Holmus (Adam of Bremen), Burgundehulm (1145), and Borghandæholm (14th century).[33]Alfred the Great uses the form Burgenda land.[34] Some scholars[35] believe that the Burgundians take their name from the island of Bornholm; they comprised a Germanic tribe which moved west when the western Roman Empire collapsed, and occupied and named Burgundy in France in the 5th century CE.
Champagne – from the Latincampania (plain, open country, battlefield). Compare "Campania", below.
Occitania, from Occitània in Occitan. From medieval Latin Occitania (approximately since 1290). The first part of the name, Occ-, is from Occitan [lenga d']òc or Italian [lingua d']oc (i.e. "Language of Òc"), a name given to the Occitan language by Dante according to its way of saying "yes" (òc). The ending -itania is probably an imitation of the old Latin name [Aqu]itania.
Provence – from Latin provincia (province), short for Provincia Narbonensis, the Roman province located in present-day southern France.
French Polynesia, a territory: Polynesia formed from the Greekpolynesia ("many islands"), a compound of polý- (πολύ, "many") and nēsos (νῆσος, "island").
Bassas da India, part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands: Cartographic errors misspelling original name PortugueseBaixo da Judia ("Jewess Shoal") from the name of a Portuguese ship that ran aground on the reef.[36]
Mayotte, a territory: A French corruption of the native Maore or Mawuti, sultanates on the island around the year 1500.
New Caledonia, a territory: "New Scotland" from the LatinCaledonia, bestowed by British captain James Cook in 1774 after a supposed resemblance. For further etymology of "Caledonia", see Scotland below.
Saint Pierre: From the French for "Saint Peter", patron of fishermen.
Miquelon: From the Basque for "Michael", possibly for Saint Michael, published by Martin de Hoyarçabal's pilot in 1579 as Micquetõ and Micquelle, after which it evolved over time into Miclon, Micklon, and finally Miquelon.
Baden: after the city of Baden-Baden, formerly Baden, the name became reduplicated to distinguish it from the state (as in "Baden in Baden"). The name means "baths", after the springs in the city.
Württemberg: after Württemberg Castle, which stood on the Württemberg, a hill in Stuttgart, formerly Wirtemberg, further origin uncertain (-berg means "mountain")
Bavaria (German Bayern): the state of Bavaria developed out of the tribe of the Baiuvarii, who probably gained their name from the land of Bohemia
Brandenburg: after the city of Brandenburg. The earlier Slavic name of the castle (Burg) of Brandenburg appears as Branibor (Slavic for "Branim's forest", where bor means "a dense forest").
Hamburg: from the 9th-century name Hammaburg, where Hamma has multiple conflicting interpretations, but burg means "castle".
Lower Saxony (German Niedersachsen): after the tribe of the Saxons. "Lower Saxony" became differentiated in modern times from the state of Saxony to its southeast. The word "lower" reflects Lower Saxony's location in the lowlands of the North German Plain, as opposed to Saxony, which has a higher elevation. See below for etymology of "Saxony".
Mecklenburg takes its name from Mecklenburg Castle in Dorf Mecklenburg (Burg means "castle" in German, the first part means "big": compare Middle Low Germanmekel, cognate with English mickle—"big castle").
Pomerania (German Pommern) comes from Slavic roots meaning "near the sea" (in Slavic languages more means "sea"): the standard modern Polish name for the region, Pomorze, demonstrates this well.
The name of the Rhine derives from GaulishRenos, and ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European root *reie- ("to move, flow, run"); words like river and run share the same root.[39] The Reno River in Italy shares the same etymology. The spelling with -h- suggests a borrowing from the Greek form of the name, Rhenos,[39] seen also in rheos, "stream", and rhein, "to flow".
Westphalia formed the westernmost subdivision of the Saxon tribe; the origin of the second part (-falen in German) remains unknown
The word Palatinate derives from Latinpalatinus "imperial", from palatium "palace", after the location of the palace of the Roman Emperor Augustus on the Palatine Hill in Rome
Saxony (German Sachsen): land of the Saxons (possibly the "sword-folk"). The state of Saxony developed out of the Saxon tribe, which principally inhabited present-day Lower Saxony; during the Middle Ages and early modern times, the name migrated to the current location of the state of Saxony
Schleswig takes its name from the City of Schleswig, which in turn derives its name from the Schlei bay and the Low German word wig for "trading place".
"Holstein" comes from a Saxon subtribe named, in Latin, Holcetae, whose means "dwellers in the wood" (Northern Low Saxon: Hol(t)saten; German: Holzsassen).
Brunswick (German: Braunschweig): from the town of Brunswick, possibly originating as "Bruno's wik" (Bruno's marketplace) (with reference to the legendary founder Bruno, Duke of Saxony, died 880, or another Bruno) or as "burnt wik"); the High German form Braunschweig is an erroneous translation of the original Low GermanBrunswick
Franconia (German: Franken): from the traditional designation "Franks", referring especially to the Kingdom of the East Franks. The name refers to those areas east of the Rhine that were first occupied by the Franks, as opposed to areas that were held by the Swabians, Bavarians or Saxons.
Hohenzollern: ultimately from the names of Hohenzollern Castle and its location, Mount Hohenzollern (known locally as Zoller or Zollern). The lexeme hoh/hohen in German means "high/height".
Oldenburg, after the city of Oldenburg, first recorded in 1108 as the town of Aldenburg, subsequently also a county, duchy, grand duchy and republic, meaning "old castle"
Prussia (German: Preußen) – (at times historically connected with Germany or with parts thereof): from the people known as the Prussians, a grouping of western Balt peoples whose collective name (German: Prussen or anciently Pruzzen) may possibly derive from an Indo-European root meaning "swamp": see Old Prussians; for political reasons, the electors of Brandenburg decided to name themselves kings of Prussia in the 18th century; in this way, they transferred the name of the remote eastern region to a major German state
Banten: named in the honor of the former Banten Sultanate, which ruled over the region from 16th to the 18th centuries and became one of the main fronts of opposition against the colonial might of the Dutch East India Company (VOC).
Bengkulu: named after the Bengkulu river, which passes through the area of the province. The name of Bengkulu itself comes from the Malay word bangkai meaning "corpse", and hulu meaning "river-source"—it refers to the story that in the past the area near the source of the river Bengkulu had often served as a battlefield—tribes and clans battled each other on the river banks leaving them full of corpses and blood.
Gorontalo: from the Dutch version of the local phrase hulontalo, meaning "lands surrounded by water" due to the many lakes and rivers formerly in the area
Irian Jaya: The name Irian is said to come from the Biak language.[citation needed] An alternative etymology for Irian stems from the acronym Ikut Republik Indonesia, Anti Nederland ("Join/Follow the Republic of Indonesia, rejecting The Netherlands) (see the article on the Province of Papua—as of 2009[update] the official Indonesian and internationally recognized name for Irian Jaya).[citation needed] The word jaya means "victory" or "glorious" in Indonesian, referring to the Indonesian victory over the colonisers who controlled the area both militarily and diplomatically, a sign of pride as the Indonesians showed themselves capable not only of defending their lands from the Dutch attempt to reestablish colonial rule after World War II, but also of taking over lands not included in the 1945 proclamation or the 1950 reunification, specifically Irian Jaya or the province of Papua.
Jakarta: from the Javanese words jaya (meaning "victory") and karta (meaning "glory"), which make up the phrase "victorious & glorious; this refers to the victory of Prince Pati Unus (also known as Fatahillah) of the Demak Sultanate in his campaign to defeat the rival Malacca Sultanate of the Malay peninsula and Samudera Pasai Sultanate of Aceh region in the mid-16th century. The "glorious victory" also refers to the event of Indonesian Proclamation of Independence on 17 August 1945 which took place in the city.
Jambi: the province takes its name from the historical Jambi Sultanate which ruled over the area from the 17th to the 19th centuries
Lampung: From the word "Lambung" in the Old Malay phrase anjak Lambung, which means "descended from the heights". This refers to the ancestral riddle of the Lampung people, who allegedly had ancestors "descended from the heights". The "heights" reference the southernmost part of the Barisan mountain range that runs through all the western part of the Lampung province.
Nusa Tenggara: from Nusa meaning "islands" (referring to the Lesser Sunda Islands that make up the area) and tenggara meaning "south-east" (referring to the position of the area within the country).
Yogyakarta: From 'Jogja' and 'Karta'. Jogja is a Javanised version of a Sanskrit word, 'Ayodhya', the prefix A- meaning 'not' and 'Yodhya' is synonymous to Hindi 'Yuddha', meaning battle, combat, fight, or war. Thus Ayodhya, which later Javanised into Jogja, meant 'The place of no fight' or in simpler interpretation, peaceful. This may refer to the geographic location of Jogjakarta, being fortified naturally by the Java Sea to the South, the Merapi Mountain to the north, the Gunung Sewu Karst Mountains to the east and Progo River to the west where it would be the perfect fortress of peace, and even more supported as a breeding place of peaceful life with its rich and fertile volcanic land and rivers, sourcing up to the majestic Merapi. The word 'Karta' means glory, referring to a hope that this city would bring glory to its people.
Mazendran: its combination of 3 words: Mad (female, mother, mater) and Zainthi (wisdom, knowledge, science) Eran (aryans), Both MAD and Eran is either suffix or prefix of many places in greater Iran or Persia Europeans called + upper India
Iraq
Iraqi Kurdistan: The name Kurdistan literally means Land of the Kurds, believed to mean nomad in the Proto-Iranian language. In the Iraqi Constitution, it is referred to as Kurdistan Region.[5] The full name of the government is "Kurdistan Regional Government" (abbrev: KRG).
Ireland (Éire)
Connacht: Connachta in Irish. "Descendants of Conn". From the Irish Connachta people, who all claimed descent from the High King Conn Cétchathach, Conn of the Hundred Battles.
Leinster: Laighin in Irish. From the Irish Laigin people, named after láigne, the broad blue-grey iron spearheads they carried, and Old Norse staðr, meaning place or territory.
Munster: Mhumhain in Irish. From the Gaelic goddess Muman and the old Norse staðr, meaning place or territory.
Ulster: Ulaidh in Irish. From the Irish Ulaid people, whose name probably comes from Old Irish ul, "beard", and old Norse staðr, meaning place or territory.
Meath: Mide in Irish. "Middle" in Old Irish. No longer a province of Ireland.
Abruzzo: Aprutium in medieval Latin (6th century), a name by which the "County of Teramo" was known; in turn, Aprutium perhaps derives from the ancient people of Praetutii, who inhabited the territory in pre-Roman times.
Aosta Valley (Valle d'Aosta): From the valley where Aosta rises, which owes its name to its ancient Latin name of Augusta Pretoria.
Apulia (Puglia): From Apulia, a toponym used in pre-Roman times to indicate a territory corresponding to the current north-central Apulia. In turn, Apulia derived from the indigenous toponym "Japudia" (parallel to the Greek term Ἰαπυγία, then Latinized to lapygia), with a passing from D to L, typical of italic languages or, more precisely, Osco-Sabellic.
Basilicata: From the Greek basilikos (royal, imperial), appeared during the 7th century and used to designate Bizantine Themi governors. Basilikos means "King official", being adjective of basileus, "king"; Basilicata is a term referred to the period when the region belonged to the Eastern Roman Empire. In ancient times it was also known as "Lucania", a term that either originated from the pre-Romani people named Lucani (who took their name from the eponymous hero Lucus or by the Latin term "lucus", meaning sacred wood) or by the Greek for wolf: lykos. Another supported theory indicates that the term may have originated from the ancient Anatolian people of Lici, which would be established in the area of their original land: Licia.
Calabria: a Roman times toponym at the time referred to the Salentine Peninsula, now part of Apulia, that may be originated from a pre-Indo-European mediterranean root cal-/cala- or calabra/galabra-, meaning "rock", "calcareous concretion".
Campania: From the homonymous Latin name, coming from the Campanians people, the ethnonym would come from campus, "open field, countryside", since this people was completely dedicated to agriculture; the first meaning of the Region name was the equivalent of "Land of Work", a name that was given to it for the same reason. Compare "Champagne", above.
Emilia-Romagna: Emilia derives from the Via Aemilia, a main trading route, that takes its name from its builder, Marco Emilio Lepido, from the Aemilia gens. Romagna derives from Romania (Roman territory).
Lazio: From Latin "Latium", given to the Region by the Latins (Italic tribe); in turn the toponym may be deriving from the size of their territory, being it wide, flat or large (latus in Latin). Ovid hints at perhaps a slightly more sophisticated folk etymology, with a legend of the naming of Latium after Saturnlatente deo (as a god in hiding) after he allegedly fled to Italy following his expulsion by Jupiter. Modern linguists postulate origins in a Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) root *stela- (to spread, extend), expressing the idea of "flat land" (in contrast to the local Sabine high country). But the name may originate from an earlier, non-Indo-European one. See the Online Etymological Dictionary.
Liguria: From the homonymous Latin toponym, the ancient pre-Romani people of Ligures, in greek Λιγυες, Ligues and in Latin Ligures, of uncertain origin, mentioned from the 7th century BC to the 5th century BC.
Lombardy: from the medieval Latin "Langobardia", Land of the Lombards, a germanic population that invaded the Italian peninsula in 568, making Pavia its own reign capital.
Marche: from the plural of Marca, identifying a frontier territory, developed to designate the territory on a political and administrative level during the early Middle Ages, referring to the period in which the Region was at the border of Charlemagne Empire during the 8th century.
Molise: Derives from a toponym registered for the first time during the early Middle Ages, indicating a Normans' county, like "Castello di Molise" (Molise Castle), which name may be originated from the Latin "Molensis".
Piedmont: From the expression that alludes to the Region morphology, at the foot of the mountains, particularly at the foot of the Western Alps.
Sardinia: From the Latin Sardinia and the name of its ancient inhabitants, Sardi. It is unclear how those populations did define themselves, while it is possible that the etnonym derived from Sherden people.
Sicily: From the Latin Sicilia and the Greek Sikelia, by the name of the people who inhabited the island, Sicels, who may had originated from the centre of Italy but moved then to the eastern side of Trinacria. Yet since the 2nd century BC, the Latin term Siculus has lost every ethnolinguistic connotation, indicating who is born or lives on the island.
Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol: Trentino derived from the Latin Tridentinus, adjective of Tridentum, Trento, identifying the area of its Autonomous province. Alto Adige alludes to the upper course of the river Adige and identifies the area of Bolzano's Autonomous province.
Tuscany: From the medieval Latin "Tuscania", having as an adjective Tuscanus, from the late Latin Tuscia, from the adjective Tuscus, plural Tusci, in turn from a previous Truscus, shortening of Etruscus, plural Etrusci, Etruscan civilization, the inhabitants of the Region during the pre-Roman times.
Umbria: From the Latin Umbria, from the ancient Umbri people; it's unclear the provenance of their etnonym. An hypothesis was proposed by Pliny the Elder in the "Natural History (Pliny)": "The umbrian population is estimated to be the most ancient of Italy; in facts, we believe that Umbri have been called Ombrii by the Greeks, since they may be survived to the rains when their land was flooded by the Flood". "Ombros" in Greek and "Imbris" in Latin means "rain, downpour".
Veneto; From the ancient pre-Roman Adriatic Veneti, also known as Paleoveneti, mentioned by some main historical figures like: Julius Caesar, Tacitus and Pliny the Elder; the Indo-European root detected at the origin of this name is wen, to love, so Veneti may be the "lovely and friendly ones".
Jeolla – from the first characters in the city names Jeonju and Naju (The first character of Naju is actually "ra"—"r" changes to "n" in the initial position, and the combination "nr" changes to "ll" due to phonological characteristics of the Korean language).
Khammuan (ຄໍາມ່ວນ) – Kham (ຄໍາ) in Lao means "gold", and Muan (ມ່ວນ) in Lao means "Joyous"
Luang Namtha (ຫລວງນໍ້າທາ) – means "royal sugar palm" or "royal green river"
Luang Prabang/Luang Phabang (ຫລວງພະບາງ) – Luang (ຫລວງ) in Lao means "Large" or "Grand", and Phabang (ພະບາງ) is the name of the buddha image which the city is named after.
Savannakhet (ສະຫວັນນະເຂດ) – derives from Savanh Nakhone ('heavenly district' or 'land of fertility suitable for agriculture'). Savanh (ສະຫວັນ) in Lao means "Heaven" and Nakhet (ນະເຂດ) in Lao means "District"
Vientiane/Vieng Chan (ວຽງຈັນ) – city of sandalwood. Vieng (ວຽງ) in Lao means "city" and Chan (ຈັນ) in Lao means "Moon" or "Sandalwood"
Sainyabuli (ໄຊຍະບູລີ) – The name is derived from the Sanskrit words sena ('army') and puri ('city').
Xieng Khwang (ຊຽງຂວາງ) – Xieng or Xiang (ຊຽງ) in Lao means "City" and Khwang (ຂວາງ) in Lao means "Horizontal"
Malaysia
Alor Star – alor in Malay means "furrow", while star refers to a kind of tree (Bouea macrophylla) that bears small, sour fruit known as kundang or remia in Malay
Cyberjaya – Malay: "cyber excellence", a reference to the city's designation as the "Silicon Valley of Malaysia"
Kangar – named for the Malay 'kangkok', a kind of hawk (Spizaetus Limnaetu)
Kelantan – said to be a corruption of gelam hutan, the Malay name for the Melaleuca leucadendron tree, also possibly derived from kilatan ("lightning")
Klang – possibly from Mon-Khmerklong or Malay kilang ("warehouse")
Kota Kinabalu - The word of "kota" means city in Malay while the word of "kinabalu" derived from the Kadazandusun aki nabalu ("grandfather" for aki, and "mountain" for nabalu)
Kuching - Malay: "cat", but probably a corruption of the Indian cochin ("port") or a reference to the mata kucing trees that used to proliferate where the city grew subsequently
Labuan – derived from the Malay labuhan ("anchorage")
Langkawi – Malay for "eagle island", but possibly related to Langkasuka, an ancient Hindu kingdom founded in Kedah in the 1st century CE
Perak – Malay: "silver", from the silvery colour of tin for which the area is known or possibly from the "glimmer of fish in the water"
Putrajaya – Malay: literally: "the son's victory"; but taken to mean "princely excellence". Named after the first Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra, possibly with reference to the planned city's status as the new administration centre for the Federal Government
Selangor – possibly from the Malay selangau ("fly") due to the abundance of flies along the Selangor River
Sungai Petani – literally "farmer river" in Malay, said to originate from the concentration of paddy-fields and farmers in the state
Bayan-Ölgii: from the Mongolian: Bayan (rich), Ölgii (cradleregion), a province later built in the 1940s especially for some Kazakh tribes migrated to Mongolia in the early 1910s for land.
Western Sahara, claimed territory: After its geographic position. "Sahara" derives from the Arabic aṣ-Ṣaḥrā' (الصحراء), meaning "desert". The area is also claimed by the Sahrawis.
Curaçao: Uncertain. One etymology derives from Portuguese curaçao ("healing");[citation needed] another from Portuguese coração ("heart");[citation needed] another that it is a local endonym.[42]
Drenthe (Dutch Low Saxon: Drentie): first mentioned in a Latin document of 820 as pago Treanth. Treanth probably finds its origin in the number three, as the area was then divided in three jurisdictions.
Flevoland: from Latin Lacus Flevo (Lake Flevo), a name used in Roman sources to refer to a body of water at what would later become known as the Zuiderzee. The Netherlands government established the province in 1986 on lands reclaimed from the Zuiderzee in the 1950s and 1960s.
Gelderland (also English: Guelders): Named after the modern city of Geldern, Germany.
Groningen (Gronings: Grönnen or Grunnen). Named after its capital city. The origin of the city name is uncertain; theories include an original meaning of "people of Groni" (a man's name) or "green fields".
Limburg: Derived from the castle-fortified town of Limbourg which in turn was derived from "lint" "dragon" and burg "fortress". See also under Belgium.
North Brabant (Dutch: Noord-Brabant). The name in Carolingian times appeared in Latinised form as pagus Bracbatensis, from bracha "new" and bant "region". See also under Belgium.
Utrecht: named after the city of Utrecht, the name of which derives from Latin Ultraiectum ad Rhenum, meaning "place to cross the Rhine river".
Zeeland (also English: Zealand): Dutch for "sea land".
Other names
Alkmaar: from Aelcemaer, meaning 'lake of auks', due to the fact that lakes formerly surrounded the core of Alkmaar—all of them now drained and thus turned into dry land
Amsterdam: from Amstelredam, which means "dam over the Amstel" (the river Amstel flows through present-day Amsterdam)
Batavia (Germanic): "arable land" (derived from the regional name "Betuwe", as opposed to the other regional name "Veluwe" meaning "fallow" or "waste" land). Alternatively: the people known as the Batavians (Latin: Batavi) inhabited the island of Betawe between the Waal and the Rhine. The name of the island probably derives from batawjō ("good island", from Germanic bat—"good, excellent" and awjō—"island, land near water"), referring to the region's fertility.
Bonaire: Uncertain, but thought to have been originally derived from the Caquetio word bonay. Later Dutch and Spanish colonists modified it, first to Bojnaj and finally to its current name of Bonaire (French: "good air").
Holland (part of the Netherlands; but the term often refers to the country as a whole): Germanic "holt (i.e. wooded) land" (often incorrectly regarded as meaning "hollow [i.e. marsh] land")
Netherlands Antilles, a territory: From their Dutch owners and from a mythical land or island (Antillia), west of Europe, or a combination of two Portuguese words ante or anti (possibly meaning "opposite" in the sense of "on the opposite side of the world") and ilha ("island"), currently the name for these Caribbean Islands.
Rotterdam: meaning 'dam over the Rotte' (the river Rotte flows through present-day Rotterdam)
Stad en Ommelanden for the province of Groningen, meaning "city and surrounding lands" and referring to the city of Groningen and the medieval Frisian lordships west, north and east of the city.
Twente (region in the east of the province of Overijssel): from Latintvihanti;[citation needed] or after the Germanic tribe the Tubantii as described by Tacitus; or an early form of the current Twents-language word for a 2-year-old horse: Tweanter.
Auckland: in honour of George Eden, Earl of Auckland, a patron of William Hobson, who founded and named the city of Auckland. The Earl took his sobriquet from Auckland in Durham, United Kingdom, possibly deriving from the CelticAlclet or Aclet, or "Cliffs of the Clyde". Although nowhere near the River Clyde, the locality may have had connections with the Celtic kingdom of Strathclyde; it may have borrowed the name of the Clyde for aesthetic or prestige reasons, as Alclet's river—the Gaunless—means "useless" in Old Norse; or a nearby river may have had the name "Clyde"—history does not record the name of the river Gaunless before the Norse named it
Otago: anglicised from the Māori name Otakou, a kainga east of present-day Otago Harbour, originally meaning "one isolated village" or "place of red earth"
Levin: from a director of the railway company that established the town to help boost its railway
Niue, a territory: Niu probably means "coconut", and é means "behold". According to legend, the Polynesian explorers who first settled the island knew that they had come close to land when they saw a coconut floating in the water.
Plimmerton: from John Plimmer, Wellington pioneer, director of the railway company that created the seaside resort to help boost its railway; central Wellington has Plimmer's Steps.
Tasman: district named from the bay name, in honour of Dutchman Abel Tasman, commander of first European expedition to sight the country; also a mountain and glacier name. Abel Tasman National Park bears a fuller version of his name.
Tokelau, a territory: From the Tokelauan "North" or "Northern", in reference to their position relative to Samoa. The Tokelauan people traditionally suppose themselves to have originated from settlers from Samoa.
Adamawa: the state occupies most of the territory of the defunct 19th-century Adamawa Emirate, which stretched from northeastern Nigeria to northern Cameroon. The word Adamawa derives from the name of the founder of the emirate, Modibbo Adama. The original name for the emirate was Fombina (''southlands" in Fulfulde), named by the founder of the Sokoto Caliphate, Usman dan Fodio. However, it later came to be known as Adamawa, meaning "the people of Adama" in the Hausa language. The suffix -wa is appended in Hausa to signify the collective identity of 'people of' that place, so, Adamawa means "the people of Adama".[15]
Norway
Counties
Akershus – Fortress of (the district) Aker (named after the farm Aker, meaning agriculture field)
Aust-Agder – East Agder. Agder has a pre-Viking Age unknown meaning. Maybe meaning coast, related to English edge.
Buskerud – after a farm Buskerud, meaning the Bishops farm (rud more specifically means clearing the wood for farming)
New Britain – in honour of Great Britain. Originally named by William Dampier in the Latin form Nova Britannia; called Neu-Pommern (New Pomerania) during the period of German colonization until the conquest of the area by Australia in 1914
New Ireland – named after Ireland (with the Latin phrase Nova Hibernia) by Philip Carteret in 1767 when he established that it differed from nearby New Britain. (Officially known as New Mecklenburg (German: Neumecklenburg or Neu-Mecklenburg) during the period of German New Guinea from 1885 to 1914.)
Greater Poland – from the tribe of Polans or from the word "pole" (field) meaning "country of fields" – "Greater" distinguishes it from the whole Polish state
Muntenia – from muntean=man of the mountains, from Romanian munte=mountain
Oltenia – from the river Olt, called Alutus by the Romans, possibly from Latin lutum, meaning "mud" or "clay".
Transylvania – "beyond the woods"—i.e., from Hungary
Ardeal – possibly a borrowing of the Hungarian name Erdély, like the Romani name Ardyalo—speakers of old Hungarian pronounced Erdély as Erdél. The initial Hungarian "e-" occasionally changes to "a-" in Romanian (compare Hungarian egres "gooseberry" and Egyed, which became agriş and Adjud in Romanian). The ending '-eal' in Romanian does not suggest a Romanian borrowing from Hungarian. In parallel examples, Hungarian -ely becomes -ei in Romanian. But when Hungarian adopts a word from Romanian, "a" usually becomes "e": Andreas becomes Endre, the Latin ager becomes eger, etc. Thus the word Ardeal could become Erdély. The linguist Josep Lad Pic determined[citation needed] that the word "Ardeal" has an Indo-European origin, while the words Erdely and Erdo do not. The Proto-Indo-European root *arde ("to grow", "high") manifests itself in the Old Indian árdhuka ("prospering"), and in Latin arduus ("high"). In Celtic Gaul, Arduenna silva parallels the English "Forest of Arden" and the Ardennes Woods in Belgium. In Romanian, deal means "hill" and ardica "to grow, high, prosperous".
Arkhangelsk Oblast: the region of the city of Arkhangelsk, whose name the inhabitants traditionally associated with a monastery in the area dedicated to the Archangel Michael (Russian: Архангел Михаил or Arkhangel Mikhail).
Chechnya: the Russian ethnonymChechen probably derives from the name of the ancient village of Chechana or Chechen-aul. The village stands on the bank of the Argun River, near Grozny. Another theory derives the name from chechenit' sya, "to talk mincingly".[46]Vasmer suggests a Kabardian origin: šešen.[47] The native term, Noxçi, comes from nexça (sheep cheese), nox (plow) or from the prophet Noah (Nox in Chechen).
Dagestan: the word Daghestan or Daghistan (Avar: Дагъистан; Arabic and Persian: داغستان) means "country of mountains"; it derives from the Turkic word dağ, meaning "mountain" and the Persian suffix -stan meaning "land of". The spelling Dagestan transliterates the Russian name, which lacks the voiced velar fricative.
Kaliningrad Oblast: from the Russian name Kaliningrad (Kalinin-city) of its largest city, renamed in 1946 to commemnorate Mikhail Kalinin
Kazan (former Imperial Russian governorate): (compare the name of the city of Kazan)
Sakhalin: derived from misinterpretation of a Manchu name "sahaliyan ula angga hada" (peak of the mouth of the Amur River). "Sahaliyan" means "black" in Manchu and refers to the Amur River (sahaliyan ula).
Siberia: from a Tatar word meaning "sleeping land"
Banská Bystrica: The name includes two distinct roots: the adjective Banská (from Slovak baňa—"mine") and the name of the local river Bystrica (from Slavic bystrica—"a swift stream").[48] Its name in Hungarian: Besztercebánya has the same semantic origin. The name literally means "mining creek".
Bratislava: The first written reference comes from the Annales Iuvavenses, which calls the locality Brezalauspurc (literally: Braslav's castle), in relation to the battles between the Bavaria and Hungary, which took place before the walls of Bratislava Castle in 907.[49] The castle got its name either from Predslav, third son of King Svatopluk I or from the local noble Braslav.[50] This former variant reappears as "Braslav" or "Preslava" on coins minted by King István I of Hungary, dating to about the year 1000 and in which appeared the motto "Preslavva Civitas".[51] At the end of the Middle Ages, the name took its final German form Pressburg: Slovak of Prešporok derived from this.[51] Although Pressburg remained the official name until 1919, the Hungarians use and used the name Pozsony (attested by the 12th century).[51][52]Bozan could result from a ruling of the Bratislava Castle from the eleventh century. The name PosoniumLatin derives from Hungarian.[53] In addition to these names, documents of the Renaissance call the city 'Ιστροπόλις' Istropolis which means "City of the Danube" in Ancient Greek. The current name, Bratislava, dates from 1837 when the Slavist scholar Pavel Jozef Šafárik reconstructed a variant of the name, Břetislaw[54] a from old names, believing that these derived from the name of the ruler Bretislaus I of Bohemia.
Košice: The first written mention of the city as "villa Cassa" dates from 1230.[55] The Slovak name of the city comes from the Slavic personal name "Koša" with the patronymic slavic suffix "-ice".[56] According to other sources the city name probably stems from an ancient Hungarian first name which begins with "Ko" such as Kokos-Kakas, Kolumbán-Kálmán, or Kopov-Kopó.[57] Historically, the city has been known as Kaschau in German, Kassa in Hungarian, Cassovia or Caschovia in Latin, Cassovie in French, Caşovia in Romanian, Кошицы (Koshitsy) in Russian and Koszyce in Polish (see here for more names).
Nitra: The first mention of Nitra dates back to 880 (other variations: 826 as Nitrawa, 880 as Nitra, and in 1111/1113 as Nitra, Nitria). The name of the city derives from the river Nitra. The name originates in the Germanic word Nitrahwa: in the Indo-European languages nid means "flow" while ahwa means "water".
Prešov: The city name originates in the Hungarian word eper which means "strawberry".[58] The city's historic coat of arms contains strawberries.[58] Historically, the city has been known as Eperjes in Hungarian, Eperies or Preschau in German, Fragopolis in Greco-Latin, Preszów in Polish, Peryeshis in Romany, Пряшев (Pryashev) in Russian and Пряшів (Priashiv) in Rusyn and Ukrainian.
Trenčín: Trenčín first appeared under Greek name Leukaristos (Λευκαριστος), depicted on the Ptolemy world map around 150 CE. In 179 CE, during the Marcomannic Wars between the Roman Empire and Germanic Quadi, the Romans carved an inscription on the rock under the present-day castle, mentioning the place as Laugaricio. (The inscription marks the northernmost known presence of the Romans in Central Europe.) The first written mentions in the Middle Ages date from 1111 (as Treinchen) and from 1113 (adjective: Trenciniensis). The name became Trentschin in later German and Trencsén in Hungarian.
Trnava: The name of the city derives from the Slovak word tŕnie ("thornbush") which characterized the river banks in the region. The Hungarian name Nagyszombat (first mentioned in 1238 in the form of Zumbotel) originates from the Hungarian word szombat ("Saturday"), referring to the weekly market fairs held on Saturdays.
Orange Free State: the Free State operated as an independent country (Free State) during most of the 19th century. The adjective Orange came from the Orange River to the south/south-west of the province, in turn named in 1779 by Robert Jacob Gordon (1743–1795), commander of the Cape Colony garrison (1780–1795), in honour of the Dutch House of Orange-Nassau.[59]
Gauteng: The Sesotho name for the province's and country's largest city of Johannesburg. The literal meaning, "Place of Gold", refers to the area's large gold-mining industry.
KwaZulu-Natal: a combination of the names of the two entities that merged to form the modern province:
Natal: Portuguese for "Christmas". The Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama named the area: he landed on the coast of the future KwaZulu-Natal on Christmas Day in 1497.
Limpopo: the Limpopo River forms the province's and the country's most northern boundary.
Mpumalanga: "east", or more literally, "the place where the sun rises", in several Nguni languages, among them Swazi, Xhosa, and Zulu. Refers to the province's location in the north-east of South Africa.
North West: From its geographic position, in the north of the country and west of the main population-centre of Gauteng.
Spain
Andalusia: from the Arabic name (Al-Andalus, with several suggested etymologies) formerly applied to the whole Iberian Peninsula
Aragon: from the Aragon River, that gave its name to the county of Aragon, one of the little Christian polities that resisted Islamic rule in Spain during its greatest extent (see Reconquista)
Asturias: the land of the Astures, an early people of north-west Spain
Basque Country (Basque: Euskal Herria): from the ancient tribe of the Vascones, whose name became an ethnonym in the Middle Ages. The Basque name derives from Euskara (the autochthonous name for the Basque language).
Álava (Basque: Araba): of uncertain etymology. Various theories see it deriving from a Roman town called Alba, from several prossible Basque etymologies or from Arabs (who only briefly held the province). A chronicle of 905 uses the form Arba, but later the word commonly appears as Alaba or Alava.
Biscay (Basque: Bizkaia, Spanish: Vizcaya): variant of bizkarra ("shoulder", "back" or, in this case, "mountain range" in Basque)
Gipuzkoa (Spanish: Guipúzcoa): of unknown etymology. Old documents sometimes use the variant Ipuscoa.
Cantabria: from the Cantabri, a mountain people defeated by the Romans only after a great military effort (Cantabrian Wars, 29 – 19 BC). Celtologists have suggested a derivation from the Celtic root cant-, meaning "rock" or "stone", and from the suffix -abr, used frequently in Celtic regions. From this we can deduce that the word "cantabrus" means "dwelling in the mountains", referring to the rugged terrain of Cantabria. Another suggestion derives Cantabria from the Celtic Kant ("mountain" or "rock") and Iber (the river Ebro), thus "The Mountains of the Ebro". Spaniards also call this region La Montaña ("The Mountain"), but usually call the Bay of Biscay the Cantabrian Sea.
Castile: the Spanish/Castilian name Castilla reflects the Spanish castillo ("castle") and the Latin castellum ("fort" or "fortress") with reference to numerous forts or castles erected by King Alfonso I for the defence of the area
Catalonia: from the castlà ("castellan") class who governed the nascent feudal Catalonia from their castles in the 11th and 12th centuries. (Compare the etymology of "Castile".) Other parallel theories exist: Lafont (1986) says Catalunya could come from Arabic Qalat-uniyya (Qalat means "castle" and -uniyya operates as a collective suffix) because medieval Catalonia formed a border country with a lot of castles in front of the Muslim and Arabized zone of the Iberic peninsula. Some texts suggest that the name Catalunya derives from "Gauta-landia": land of the Goths, or "Goth-Alania" meaning "Land of the Goths and Alans"[60] through Arabian *Cotelanuyya [cf. Andalusia, land of the Vandals], as the Visigoths and Alans invaded and divided Iberia between themselves, agreeing to rule some parts together, with the region of Catalunya going to the Visigoths. Additionally, the Visigothic kingdom of Catalonia may have taken its name from that of the original homeland of the Visigoths, "Gotland". Coromines suggests an Iberian origin: Laietani (latinization of Iberian laiezken) > *laketani > laketans > metathesized as catelans > catalans, re-inforced by castellani (with an epenthetics according to Coromines). Another theory suggests *kaste-lan as the Iberian name, later Latinized as castellani (an Iberian tribe in northern Catalonia according to Ptolemy); then the name would have evolved into *catellani > *catelans > *Catalans.
Extremadura: from Medieval LatinExtrema Dorii (literally, "extremes of the Douro river"), referring to the territories south of the Douro basin; or from an Old Castilian word used to designate the further territories controlled by the Christians (see Reconquista)
Galicia: from Latin Gallaecia, the name of the province created in Roman Hispania by Diocletian in 298 CE. It derives from gallicoi or callicoi, (Galli or Celts).
León: the ancient kingdom and subsequent province of León take their name from the city of León, whose name derives from its position as the base of a Roman legion (Latin legio)
Navarre (Spanish: Navarra, Basque: Nafarroa): from the Kingdom of Navarre. Navarra has been argued to have either a Basque or Romance etymology. In the first case it would come from nabar ("brownish, multicolor", also "plowshare"), in the second from nava ("river bank").
Rioja: speculatively interpreted as "red" from the redness of a prominent soil type in the area.[61]
Sweden
Historical Provinces
Provinces of Sweden
Sweden formerly consisted of historical provinces (Swedish: landskap), and the province-names still often serve to describe locations in Sweden. Their names often date from before the year 1000. Officially Sweden now subdivides into counties (Swedish: län), introduced in 1634.
Historical provinces:
Blekinge: from the adjective bleke, which corresponds to the nautical term for "dead calm".
Västerbotten: West Bothnia (west side of the Gulf of Bothnia). In old Nordic "botten" meant inner part of a bay/gulf, see the etymology of Bothnia. Compare Ostrobothnia (Österbotten / East Bothnia) in Finland, formerly a Swedish province, and Norrbotten above.
Västernorrland: means "Western Norrland". At the time Norrland meant North Sweden including North Finland, and Western Norrland excluded Finland. Now Västernorrland is located in Eastern Norrland.
Norrbotten: North Bothnia (originally northern part of Västerbotten County)
Aargau: German name labelling the district (Gau) of the River Aar.
Appenzell: from Latin abbatis cella, meaning "land of the abbot", referring to the fact that Appenzell originally belonged to the Abbey of St. Gall.
Basel: traditionally associated with the Greek basileus ("king") or basileos ("of the king"): the city saw itself as preserving the Imperial Roman heritage of its parent settlement, the Roman town of Augusta Raurica. Note the use of the basilisk as a Basler icon.
Neuchâtel: French for "new castle"; Neuenburg (with the same semantic meaning) in German
Schwyz: named after the town of Schwyz; the origin of the town name is unknown.
St Gallen: from Saint Gall (c. 550 – c. 646), traditionally the Irish founder/namesake of the Abbey of St. Gall which came to dominate the area.
Solothurn: the city of Solothurn, capital of the Canton of the same name, first appears under the Celtic name Salodurum.
Thurgau: an early medieval Gau county named after the River Thur.
Ticino: from the principal river of the canton, the Ticino, a tributary of the Po River.
Uri: (speculatively) from the older German Aurochs, a wild ox (see aurochs); or from the Celtic word ure, a bull. (Note the head of the bull on the cantonal coat of arms.)
Valais (French), Wallis (German): from the Latin word vallis, meaning "valley"; the canton consists mainly of the Rhone valley.
Zürich: after the city of Zürich, called Turicum in 2nd-century Latin; the origin of the Latin name is unknown.
Keelung (基隆): Literally "Prosperous Base" in Chinese, renamed in 1875 from "Chicken Cage" (Chinese: 雞籠; Mandarin: Jilong; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Ke-lâng), possibly derived from the Ketagalan people
Kinmen (金門): "Golden Gate", 1387. When a fortress was built to defend the coast of Fujian, Kinmen was described as being "as secure as a metal moat, proudly safeguarding the gate of the sea" (固若金湯, 雄鎮海門)
Miaoli (苗栗): Renamed in 1889 from 貓狸/貓里 (Mandarin: Maoli), from the Bari Settlement of the Taokas Tribe, meaning "Plains"
Nantou (南投): 1695, after the Ramtau settlement of the Arikun Tribe
Most of Ukraine's oblasts take their names from their principal city; but Volyn Oblast, Zakarpattia Oblast, and the Crimean Autonomous Republic offer exceptions to this rule. See also subdivisions of Ukraine.
Scotland: "Land of the Scots", attested in the 11th-century Anglo-Saxon Chronicles of Abingdon, Worcester and Laud.[68][69] "Scot" from Old EnglishScottas, from Late LatinScoti or Scotti, of ultimately uncertain origin, but used in Latin to reference Gaels raiding Roman Britain from a region (Scotia) in Ireland.[70] and whose colinguists established the realm of Dál Riata in the vicinity of Argyll.
Caledonia, a former name: "Land of the Caledonii" in Latin, from a Latin name for a local tribe, of uncertain etymology. Possibly related to the Welshcaled ("hard", "tough").
Jersey: The Norse suffix -ey means "island" and is commonly found in the parts of Northern Europe where Norsemen established settlements. (Compare modern Nordic languages: øy in Norwegian, ø/ö in Danish and Swedish.) The meaning of the first part of the island's name is unclear. Among theories are that it derives from Norse jarth ("earth") or jarl ("earl"), or perhaps a personal name, Geirr, to give "Geirr's Island". American writer William Safire suggested that the "Jers" in Jersey could be a corruption of "Caesar".[76]
Anguilla: "eel", for its elongated shape, from either Spanishanguila, Italiananguilla, or Frenchanguille, as it is uncertain whether the island was first sighted by Christopher Columbus in 1493 or by French explorers in 1564.[77]
Islas Malvinas, its Spanish name: "Malovian Islands", from the FrenchMalouines describing the Breton sailors from St. Malo in Brittany who frequented the islands in the 1690s.
Sebald Islands, a former name now applied in Spanish to the Jason Islands: From a Dutch name commemorating Sebald de Weert, the captain usually credited with first sighting the archipelago in 1598.
Pitcairn Islands: A member of the English Captain Philip Carteret's crew in his ship HMS Swallow first sighted the remote islands in July 1767. Carteret named the main island "Pitcairn's Island" after the man who first saw land: the son of Major Pitcairn of the Marines.
South Georgia: "Land of George", from the original "Isle of Georgia" bestowed by British captain James Cook in honor of King George III on 17 January 1775. "South" distinguished it from the other colony of Georgia, which became an American state in 1782.
Baker Island National Wildlife Refuge, an unincorporated territory: for American captain Michael Baker of New Bedford, Massachusetts, who claimed to have discovered it in 1832 or 1834, despite being the third to have done so.[79]
Guam, a territory: From the native Chamorro word guahan, meaning "we have".
Howland Island, a territory: Bestowed by Capt. George E. Netcher in honor of the lookout who sighted it from his ship, the Isabella, on 9 September 1842.
Jarvis Island, a territory: Bestowed by the British Captain Brown in honor of Edward, Thomas, and William Jarvis, the owners of his vessel the Eliza Francis.
Kingman Reef, a territory: For Capt. W.E. Kingman, who discovered the reef aboard the Shooting Star on 29 November 1853.
Midway Islands, a territory: For their geographic location, perhaps from the islands' situation midway between North America and Asia, or their proximity to the International Date Line (halfway around the world from the Greenwich Meridian).[80]
Middlebrook Islands or the Brook Islands, former names: For their discoverer, Captain N.C. Middlebrooks.
Palmyra Atoll, a territory: Named after the boat Palmyra, which belonged to the American Captain Sawle. He sought shelter on the atoll on 7 November 1802, and became the first person known to land on it.
Puerto Rico, a territory with commonwealth status: Christopher Columbus named the island San Juan Bautista in honour of Saint John the Baptist in 1493. The Spanish authorities set up a capital city called Puerto Rico (meaning "rich port"). For now unknown reasons, the island and capital city had exchanged names by the 1520s.
Wake Island, an unincorporated territory: for British Captain William Wake, who sighted the island in 1796, despite the Spanish explorer Mendaña having probably sighted it in 1568.
^"Jervis Bay History". Territories Division, Attorney-General's Department, Australian Government. 19 February 2008. Archived from the original on 23 September 2008. Retrieved 10 October 2008. 1791 The bay was named 'Jervis Bay' by Lieutenant Bowen of the Atlantic in honour of Admiral Sir John Jervis under whom he had served
^ ab"Heard island: History: Discovery". Australian Antarctic Division. Archived from the original on 5 December 2005. Retrieved 28 August 2008. The first confirmed sighting of Heard Island was made on 25 November 1853 by Captain John Heard on the merchant vessel Oriental. Earlier sightings of land in the area in the 1830s are considered doubtful.
^Fairbank, John King. Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast: The Opening of the Treaty Ports, 1842–1854. 2 vols. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1953.
^King Alfred's Anglo-Saxon version of Orosius, London, 1859, edited by J. Bosworth
^Essai sur l'histoire du peuple burgonde, de Bornholm (Burgundarholm) vers la Bourgogne et les Bourguignons, 1965, by Rene Guichard, published by A. et J. Picard et Cie. (Paris)
^Bernardo Gomes de Brito. Historia Tragico-Maritima. Em que se escrevem chronologicamente os Naufragios que tiverão as Naos de Portugal, depois que se poz em exercicio a Navegação da India. Lisboa, 1735. (in Portuguese)
^Smith, S. Percy. "Futuna, or Horne Island, and Its People". The Journal of the Polynesian Society, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 33 – 52. 1892
^ ab"Rhine". Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper. November 2001. Retrieved 10 February 2009.
^
Peterson, Lena. "Swābaharjaz"(PDF). Lexikon över urnordiska personnamn. Institutet för språk och folkminnen, Sweden. p. 16. Archived from the original(PDF) on 18 May 2011. Retrieved 11 October 2007. (Text in Swedish); for an alternative meaning, as "free, independent" see Room, Adrian (2006), "Swabia, Sweden", Placenames of the World: Origins and Meanings of the Names for 6,600 Countries, Cities, Territories, Natural Features and Historic Sites: Second Edition, Jefferson, North Carolina, and London: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, pp. 363, 364, ISBN0-7864-2248-3; compare Suiones.
^Pokorny, Julius. "Root/Lemma se-". Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch. Indo-European Etymological Dictionary (IEED), Department of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics, Leiden University. pp. 882–884. Archived from the original on 9 August 2011. Some related English words include sibling, sister, swain, self.
^
Earle, Anton; Malzbender, Daniel; Turton, Anthony; Manzungu, Emmanuel (April 2005). A preliminary basin profile of the Orange/Senqu River(PDF). Inwent Capacity Development Programme: Integrated Water Resources Management in Shared River Basins in the SADC Region. Cape Town: African Water Issues Research Unit (AWIRU), University of Pretoria. p. 1. ISBN1-86854-618-7. Retrieved 21 April 2010. Contrary to popular belief, the Orange River was not named after the reddish orange colour of its silt-laden water. It was in fact named in 1779 by Colonel Robert Gordon, the commander of the garrison of the Dutch East India Company (Cape Town) during a reconnaissance into the interior, in honour of the Dutch House of Orange (DWAF, 2005).
^
Fallis, Catherine, ed. (2006). The encyclopedic atlas of wine: a comprehensive guide to the world's greatest wines and wineries. Willoughby, N.S.W.: Global Book Publishing. p. 336. ISBN1-74048-050-3.
^Cubbin, G.P. (1996). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition. Vol. 6: MS. D. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer. pp. 1, l. 3, pp. 13, l. 20. ISBN0-859-91467-4.
^Cubbin, G.P. (1996). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition. Vol. 6: MS. D. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer. pp. 1, l. 1–3. ISBN0859914674.
) ("Black River")
girin ula (吉林乌拉) meaning "Riverside"
(Köke Naghur)/Хөх нуур (Höh nuur)
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