What do country names (ones you are affiliated with or know of) mean in their own language?
What do country names (ones you are affiliated with or know of) mean in their own language?
Not something I thought of a lot when I was back in US since USA is... a pretty bureaucratic name by all means. But I just realized that some countries have really fascinating names in their local language
Like how China names itself Central/Middle country in a very grandiose way (as in, we are the center of the world), or Japan being "land of the rising sun"
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You already said China so I guess I'll go Hong Kong.
Hong Kong (香港) means fragrant harbour. The origin of this name is unknown, but there are theories of it coming from a type of wood we produced, a nice river, the wife of a pirate, or some residents just pronounced it with an accent to the British soldiers.