List of double placenames

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Not to be confused with List of reduplicated place names.

Double placenames prominently feature the placenames of two or more constituent geopolitical entities.

Such placenames are often created when two cities, provinces or other territories are amalgamated or merged, and a decision is taken to preserve the old names in double-barrelled form rather than invent a new name. This is often out of consideration for local sensitivities, since the smaller entity may resent its takeover, and may demand its symbolic perpetuation within an amalgamated name so as to propagate the impression of a merger between equals.

Styles[]

In their English forms, the conjoined names may have the following patterns:

  • concatenation, e.g. Papua New Guinea
  • grammatical conjunction, e.g. Trinidad and Tobago

The punctuation and capitalization practices in written English vary:

  • merging into one word without an intermediate space, e.g. Budapest
  • standing apart, e.g. Papua New Guinea
  • conjunction by hyphenation. While English-speakers are relaxed about using a hyphen or not, this punctuation once caused controversy between Czechs and Slovaks
  • conjunction with an en dash, typically when the usage is associative, attributive or is a juxtaposition of two independent entities.
  • CamelCase may sometimes be attempted, but many style guides recommend against this in formal English-language use.

Three-word names for two-part entities are often ambiguous. For example, it may not be clear whether North Rhine-Westphalia is an amalgamation between the north part of the Rhine Province on the one hand and Westphalia on the other (true) or the northern division of some pre-existing place called Rhine-Westphalia (false). While this problem does not arise in German, no entirely satisfactory punctuation of such names has been established in English. In the above case, the hyphen is often omitted because it is misleading. It has been proposed that this state's name be punctuated "North-Rhine/Westphalia" in English, but the solidus or forward slash is also ambiguous.

Neologisms[]

Some names have been merged and modified as an alternative to using hyphenation or grammatical conjunction:

  • BosWash: the megalopolis extending from Boston to Washington, D.C., CamelCase example (extended in fiction into a or BAMA covering most of the US East Coast)
  • SeaTac: another example of CamelCase (Seattle and Tacoma, Washington)
  • Czechoslovakia: the Czech lands and Slovakia
  • Senegambia: Senegal and Gambia
  • Tanzania: Tanganyika and Zanzibar

False double placenames[]

Binomial placenames are not true double placenames, but elements in a hierarchical naming system. They are a means of distinguishing two entities which share a parent geographic feature. Examples:

  • Guinea-Bissau (official name of the country with capital Bissau, as distinct from Guinea, with capital Conakry)
  • Congo-Brazzaville and Congo-Kinshasa (from the respective capitals of what are officially Republic of the Congo and Democratic Republic of the Congo)

They are often used for railway stations and airports:

Trenton–Mercer is an example of a marketing decision in which a small airport tries to associate itself with a larger city. Ryanair has been criticized for promoting names for airports unusually far from the city from which they are named, such as Paris Beauvais Tillé Airport (a triple name) and Frankfurt-Hahn Airport.

Binomial names may be seen in German-language texts to denominate parts of towns:

  • Bergen-Belsen (the Belsen section within the municipality of Bergen: this form is now fixed in English when referring to the Nazi concentration camp and the present memorial there)
  • Berlin-Charlottenburg: the district of Charlottenburg, Berlin

The word "and" in its name does not always signify the union of two distinct territories:

  • Sala y Gómez: one island named for two people
  • Lewis and Clark County, Montana: named for Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

In dual naming, words in two different languages have been joined by a hyphen or a slash to become the community's (or geographic feature's) official name, often because of language politics:

  • Vitoria-Gasteiz: the combination of this city's Spanish name of Vitoria and Basque name of Gasteiz
  • Dingle/Daingean Uí Chúis: proposed official name (combining English and Irish-language names) of a town in the County Kerry Gaeltacht.
  • Aoraki / Mount Cook: mountain in New Zealand with Māori and English names combined. Many geographic features of New Zealand are officially designated in a similar way (and the country as a whole is sometimes unofficially referred to as "Aotearoa New Zealand").

Similarly, places may simply have an official name which consists of two names, such as the Australian territory of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, which consists of the North Keeling Island and the South Keeling Islands.

Transitional names[]

Sometimes names will be concatenated during a name change. Zimbabwe Rhodesia was the name of the former Rhodesia and future Zimbabwe from June 1 to December 12, 1979.

Sovereign states[]

  • Antigua and Barbuda: Antigua and Barbuda
  • Bosnia and Herzegovina: Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • Papua New Guinea: Territories of Papua and New Guinea; Papua and New Guinea are actually alternate names of the same island, New Guinea, but have been used officially for different parts of this island
  • São Tomé and Príncipe: São Tomé and Príncipe
  • Saint Kitts and Nevis: Saint Kitts and Nevis
  • Saint Vincent and the Grenadines: Saint Vincent and Grenadines
  • Trinidad and Tobago: Trinidad and Tobago
  • United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Non-sovereign entities[]

Dependent territories[]

  • Andaman and Nicobar Islands: Andaman Islands and Nicobar Islands (India)
  • Ashmore and Cartier Islands: Ashmore Island and Cartier Island (Australia)
  • Heard Island and McDonald Islands: Heard Island and McDonald Island (Australia)
  • Saint Pierre and Miquelon: Saint Pierre Island and Miquelon (France)
  • South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands: South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands (United Kingdom)
  • Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia: Akrotiri and Dhekelia Cantonment (United Kingdom)
  • Trindade and Martim Vaz: Trindade Island and (Brazil)
  • Turks and Caicos Islands: Turks and Caicos (United Kingdom)
  • Wallis and Futuna Islands: Wallis Island and Futuna Islands (France)

Regions of states[]

States of federations[]

Four regions of France, several federal subjects of Russia, most local government districts of Northern Ireland and some autonomous communities of Spain (Castile and León, Castile-La Mancha) also feature two or more placenames conjoined by a hyphen or with the word "and" (or its translation).

Provinces and counties[]

Capital cities[]

  • Budapest formed in 1873 by the amalgamation of three former capitals, Buda and Óbuda (Old Buda) on the right bank of the Danube, and Pest on the left bank.

Other cities and towns[]

  • Bielsko-Biała a Polish town, is composed of two former cities on opposite banks of the Biała River, Silesian Bielsko and Lesser Poland's Biała, merged in 1951, both deriving from "white" (biała) in Polish.
  • Knokke-Heist is a municipality located in the Belgian province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises the towns Knokke and Heist-aan-Zee that merged also with some other minor locations in 1971.
  • Dallas–Fort Worth is a metroplex and the usual name for the Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan area in Texas.
  • Boulogne-Billancourt is the name of an industrial in the western suburbs of Paris, France. In 1924, the commune Boulogne-sur-Seine was officially renamed Boulogne-Billancourt to reflect the development of the industrial neighbourhood of Billancourt annexed in 1860. Many smaller French communes have been forced to merge, and double-barrelled names referring to two separate villages are not uncommon (e.g. Boutigny-Prouais in Eure-et-Loir).
  • Tel Aviv-Yafo, located on the Israeli coastal plain, was formed in 1950 when the ancient port city of Jaffa was merged with the Tel Aviv municipality to its north.

Former placenames[]

Includes defunct personal unions and dissolved political unions.

Triple placenames[]

Polycentric metropolitan areas[]

Metropolitan areas composed of multiple cities and shared facilities are often collectively named or referred to with the names of the major cities that comprise them. These are conjoined with an unspaced en dash in formal writing, though not journalism, which hyphenates. Some examples include:

Some may even be international conurbations, and do not exist as geopolitical entities:

In cases where one of the cities in the metropolitan area is itself conjoined, some other form of punctuation may be used to separate them, e.g. Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, consisting of the cities of Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

Traditionally conjoined entities[]

Separate entities historically treated as one single unit by tradition or convention:

  • Alsace-Lorraine: Alsace and Lorraine
  • Baker and Howland Islands: Baker Island and Howland Island
  • Bohemia and Moravia: Bohemia and Moravia
  • England and Wales: England and Wales
  • Eupen and Malmedy: Eupen and Malmedy
  • Matthew and Hunter Islands: Matthew Island and Hunter Island
  • Svalbard and Jan Mayen: Svalbard and Jan Mayen

United Kingdom[]

England[]

Northern Ireland[]

Scotland[]

Wales[]

United States[]

Other countries[]

See also[]

Retrieved from ""