The place-names tag has no wiki summary.
6
votes
2answers
131 views
How does foreign word transliteration work in the context of Cantonese vs Mandarin?
If I understand correctly, Cantonese sounds very different from Mandarin, despite being written in the same way (omitting some small differences, which are irrelevant for the question).
If it is the ...
4
votes
2answers
81 views
Official place names
Is there an official list of place names (esp. for non-Chinese places)? If a bureaucrat or journalist in China is writing about a lesser-known foreign place, how do they determine the characters?
I ...
6
votes
2answers
118 views
中东 - “Middle East” or “Eastern China”?
The dictionary lists both Middle East and Eastern China for 中东. Is one of these meanings more common? What would be a native speaker's first impression of the word? Does the meaning vary from ...
10
votes
1answer
213 views
Why use 非 and 亚 for continent names?
Why was 非 chosen for 非洲 (Africa) and 亚 chosen for 亚洲 (Asia)?
I can't find a particular reason to use these characters.
