Cities still known by exonyms in English tend to fall into a few categories:
Many cities in the Low Countries have traditional English exonyms. Many of these, such as Flushing for Vlissingen or Harlem for Haarlem have fallen out of use, but larger cities still tend to be known by their exonym. Most towns and cities in North Belgium were historically known by French exonyms, but are now currently known by their native Flemish names. The exceptions to this are Bruges, which is fairly large, and Ypres, which is widely known for its significance in WWI
Many major cities across Europe are known in English by their French names (i.e. Cologne, Belgrade, etc.) and a smaller number of cities are known by Italian influenced names (i.e. Vienna, Corfu, or Aleppo).
Some cities in Germany that were historically connected to the UK have English exonyms. The British King was also the monarch of Hanover and Brunswick during the rule of the House of Hanover, and Heligoland was a British colony from 1807 to 1890.
Towns in Greece and the Levant are often known by historical versions of their names, with exonyms sticking around because of the cultural importance of Ancient Greece and the Holy Land in the Anglophone world.
It becomes harder to distinguish between endonyms and exonyms in countries that do not use the Latin Alphabet, but the use of exonyms for cities generally fades as you move away from Europe and the Middle east.
Some prominent cities outside of this map known by exonyms in English include Bangkok for Krung Thep, Havana for La Habana, Batticaloa for Maṭṭakkaḷappu, and Vientiane for Viangchan
After visiting Koln a few years ago, I stopped spelling it Cologne. Besides being lazy and Koln is easier, it seemed weird to me that the world would use the French spelling.
Dunno if it counts but Iași (our second biggest city probably) is Jassy in English it also has multiple names in other languages as the city was the capital of the Moldavian Principality till it united with the Principality of Wallachia to form Romania.
I’ve always found the reverse interesting too, like all the different exonyms for London.
What is the source? This looks like a very small subset of the full list of English language exonyms for cities in Europe. I’m guessing some explanation might be in the map legend, but it’s blurry and unreadable. Makes no sense that Moscow is there but not Kiev, for example.
If you did the same list in German it would be much longer since German has special names for lots of places the Germans used to occupy (such as the famous Memel from their old anthem).
There are hardly any European languages that don’t have an exonym for Warsaw, not even neighbouring Lithuania.
Prague should be Praag. Or The Hague should be Den Haha.
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Cities still known by exonyms in English tend to fall into a few categories:
Many cities in the Low Countries have traditional English exonyms. Many of these, such as Flushing for Vlissingen or Harlem for Haarlem have fallen out of use, but larger cities still tend to be known by their exonym. Most towns and cities in North Belgium were historically known by French exonyms, but are now currently known by their native Flemish names. The exceptions to this are Bruges, which is fairly large, and Ypres, which is widely known for its significance in WWI
Many major cities across Europe are known in English by their French names (i.e. Cologne, Belgrade, etc.) and a smaller number of cities are known by Italian influenced names (i.e. Vienna, Corfu, or Aleppo).
Some cities in Germany that were historically connected to the UK have English exonyms. The British King was also the monarch of Hanover and Brunswick during the rule of the House of Hanover, and Heligoland was a British colony from 1807 to 1890.
Towns in Greece and the Levant are often known by historical versions of their names, with exonyms sticking around because of the cultural importance of Ancient Greece and the Holy Land in the Anglophone world.
It becomes harder to distinguish between endonyms and exonyms in countries that do not use the Latin Alphabet, but the use of exonyms for cities generally fades as you move away from Europe and the Middle east.
Some prominent cities outside of this map known by exonyms in English include Bangkok for Krung Thep, Havana for La Habana, Batticaloa for Maṭṭakkaḷappu, and Vientiane for Viangchan
After visiting Koln a few years ago, I stopped spelling it Cologne. Besides being lazy and Koln is easier, it seemed weird to me that the world would use the French spelling.
Dunno if it counts but Iași (our second biggest city probably) is Jassy in English it also has multiple names in other languages as the city was the capital of the Moldavian Principality till it united with the Principality of Wallachia to form Romania.
I’ve always found the reverse interesting too, like all the different exonyms for London.
What is the source? This looks like a very small subset of the full list of English language exonyms for cities in Europe. I’m guessing some explanation might be in the map legend, but it’s blurry and unreadable. Makes no sense that Moscow is there but not Kiev, for example.
If you did the same list in German it would be much longer since German has special names for lots of places the Germans used to occupy (such as the famous Memel from their old anthem).
There are hardly any European languages that don’t have an exonym for Warsaw, not even neighbouring Lithuania.
Prague should be Praag. Or The Hague should be Den Haha.
Livorno is Leighorn