Mondo Knows Facts
Many capitals have been renamed since independence
Salisbury became Harare, Lourenço Marques became Maputo and Léopoldville became Kinshasa Renaming removed colonial-era names and restored local or national ones. Harare replaced Salisbury in 1982, and Maputo replaced Lourenço Marques in 1976. Kinshasa took its name back from Léopoldville in 1966, and the change in each case marked a shift in national identity. It sits in Mondo's world geography collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
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Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
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More facts like this
Several Indian cities reverted to local namesBombay became Mumbai, Madras became Chennai and Calcutta became Kolkata between 1995 and 2001Istanbul has carried three famous namesIt was Byzantium, then Constantinople, and became Istanbul officially only in the twentieth centuryGreenland's name was a recruiting toolThe name is usually credited to Erik the Red, who wanted settlers to join him thereThe Caspian is named for a people long goneIts name comes from the Caspi, a group recorded in antiquity, not from any present-day nationIstanbul is the only major city spanning two continentsStraddling the Bosphorus Strait in Turkey, Istanbul connects Europe and Asia across a strategic waterway.Greater Tokyo is the most populous metropolitan region in the worldThe Tokyo urban area accommodates over thirty-seven million residents across its connected districts.
🗺️ World Geographyfact 194 of 200
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Tags: place-names, africa, cities
Many capitals have been renamed since independence: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- Salisbury became Harare, Lourenço Marques became Maputo and Léopoldville became Kinshasa. The figure is taken from United Nations, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a world geography fact?
- Yes. It sits on the World Geography shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.