When I hear people talk about Tokyo in Mandarin, they always pronounce it as "dōng jīng" because it's written as 东京. Similarly for Osaka and "dà bǎn" (大阪), and other such places.
Are there any names for places in Japan where this isn't done? For example, is Akihabara still called "qiū yè yuán" (秋叶原) or is it better known as just "Akihabara"? Are there any place names in Japan for which the Japanese pronunciation of the name is better known and more commonly used in China than the Chinese one?
You're right. Chinese people read Kanji using their Chinese pronunciations. For Chinese people who don't speak Japanese, they have probably only learned 'tokyo' from the English word and they don't have a clue what 'akihabara' is. The same applies to nouns, proper nouns and names.
Nishigahara becomes 西原 Xīyuán). One exception to this is ノ no, which is translated to 之, a Chinese character of equivalent meaning (e.g., 丸ノ内 Marunouchi becomes 丸之内 Wánzhīnèi).
Just adding a bit.
We also use respective Japanese pronunciations when we introduce ourselves in Japan....unless your name contains something really weird.
