Could there be more countries named after their capitals?

Fenestella

Banned
Historically, countless sovereign states including sizeable ones were named after their capital cities, e.g.
Babylon -> Babylonia
Moscow -> Muscovy
Naples -> Kingdom of Naples
Roma -> Imperium Romanum.

There are still sovereign states named after their capitals, e.g.
Alger -> Algeria
Tunis -> Tunisia.

I think Brasilia <- Brasil is the other way around, I'm not sure about the chronologies of Mexico City <-> Mexico & Panama City <->Panama.

Among the sovereign states currently not named after their capitals, whose capital city* has the significance and prestige (and whatever necessary) for the state to potentially be named after it?

*or a major city currently not the official capital
 
Last edited:
I assume city-states and small countries like Singapore, Monaco and Luxembourg (but not Liechtenstein) don't qualify?
 
You also have San Salvador/El Salvador, where the two names are synonyms (The Saviour/Holy Saviour)

It's not going happen now - the hinterlands would get upset, and in a modern state, that's important.

OTL, your examples happened because the city so massively dominated its hinterlands, either because of size (e.g. the various Italian states/Algiers/Tunis) or because an imperial conquering nation spread out from that one city (Moscow, Rome).

Today, they only way you'd get a change so the two were related is a new capital named after the nation (e.g. Brazilia - and yes, some of us are old enough to remember that, OK, remember it having recently happened) or renaming both country and capital - which somebody like Gaddafi or Idi Amin or Bokassa might have done.
 
Wasn't the Kingdom of Naples officially known as Sicily? Likewise, I think 'Muscovy' was not the native name of the country, just an (almost exclusively) western way of referring to it. So in more than a few of these cases, it's other people deciding to call a country after its capital and not by its actual name.
 
Guinea-Bissau is hyphenated with the name of the capital to distinguish it from other Guineas.
Could see a similar situation becoming official with the Congos perhaps? Congo-Kinshasa and Congo-Brazzaville respectively.
 
Guinea-Bissau is hyphenated with the name of the capital to distinguish it from other Guineas.
Could see a similar situation becoming official with the Congos perhaps? Congo-Kinshasa and Congo-Brazzaville respectively.

That reference is pretty common already. Because the Republic of Congo is probably marginally more democratic than the Democratic Republic of Congo.
 

Fenestella

Banned
Wasn't the Kingdom of Naples officially known as Sicily? Likewise, I think 'Muscovy' was not the native name of the country, just an (almost exclusively) western way of referring to it. So in more than a few of these cases, it's other people deciding to call a country after its capital and not by its actual name.

Endonym: Московия (Moskoviya), or Московское государство (Moskovskoe gosudarstvo)
In the vicinity, there used to be: Novgorodskaya Respublika, Kievskoe Knyazhestvo, Ryazanskoe Knyazhestvo ...

Endonym: Regno di Napoli
In the same area, there used to be: Ducato di Spoleto, Ducato di Benevento, Ducato di Amalfi...
 
Your best bet is probably more smaller states, the (usually feudal) ancestors of which would have been named for the chief city when the title was granted, e.g. the Counties of Barcelona and Toulouse, Prince-Bishopric of Liege etc.
 
Wasn't the Kingdom of Naples officially known as Sicily? Likewise, I think 'Muscovy' was not the native name of the country, just an (almost exclusively) western way of referring to it. So in more than a few of these cases, it's other people deciding to call a country after its capital and not by its actual name.

Yes, Naples was a name developed by histories to differentiate between the two kingdoms of Sicily. In fact historically it was the Island of Sicily that was often given a different name.
 
An alternate decolonization process could result in the birth or survival of several such states: Cabinda and Zanzibar, for example.
 
Endonym: Московия (Moskoviya), or Московское государство (Moskovskoe gosudarstvo)
In the vicinity, there used to be: Novgorodskaya Respublika, Kievskoe Knyazhestvo, Ryazanskoe Knyazhestvo ...

Endonym: Regno di Napoli
In the same area, there used to be: Ducato di Spoleto, Ducato di Benevento, Ducato di Amalfi...

"Regno di Napoli è il nome con cui è conosciuto nella storiografia moderna l'antico stato italiano esistito dal XIII al XIX secolo, il cui nome ufficiale per qualche secolo fu Regno di Sicilia citeriore. "
(The Kingdom of Naples was a name used by modern historians for the ancient Italian state between XIII and XIX centuries, whose official name was the Kingdom of Sicily)

And I believe 'Muscovy' already called itself Russia ("...всея Руси") in the early 14th century. Even if that was more wishes than reality.

So yeah, it seems they're just modern or foreign ways of referring to those states.

Yes, Naples was a name developed by histories to differentiate between the two kingdoms of Sicily. In fact historically it was the Island of Sicily that was often given a different name.

Thanks, that's what I thought.
 

Fenestella

Banned

(The Kingdom of Naples was a name used by modern historians for the ancient Italian state between XIII and XIX centuries, whose official name was the Kingdom of Sicily)

And I believe 'Muscovy' already called itself Russia ("...всея Руси") in the early 14th century. Even if that was more wishes than reality.

So yeah, it seems they're just modern or foreign ways of referring to those states.

I don't believe official endonyms are the only valid designations; if you do, you have to stop using Germany, Greece, Bohemia, Hungary, China, Japan ......
 
Top