Asian city meaning

February 26, 2019 TAKA 0 Comments

This time is about land name.

Japan city meaning

Tokyo meaning, 東京

means Eastern Metropolis. And the old name Edo(江-戸) is directoly translated to Coast-Door. Even in these days, Children born in eastern Tokyo area is called Edokko which means Edo-boy like parisian or New yorker.

Osaka meaning, 大阪

This means Large-slope

When the popular baseball team Hanshin Tigers wins league champion, People dive into river in Osaka.

Kyoto meaning, 京都

Both Character means large city. So this means just Metropolis.

Here is old Japanese capital.

China city meaning

Beijing meaning, 北京

North-Metropolis. In old time, called 大都 which is Large-Metropolis. This mega city was built by Mongolian dynasty.

Nanjing meaning, 南京

South Metropolis. This was capital city some times in Chinese long history.

Shanghai meaning, 上海

It means Upper Sea. Cf. In Japanese 上下左右(jou ge sa yuu) means Up, Down, Left, Right.

Guangzhou meaning, 広州

It’s the big city next to HongKong, it means Large State.

South Korea city meaning

Seoul

This is totally Korean name, but until these days, this called 京城.

Here comes 京 again, yes, first letter is Metropolitan, and 城 is castle. So Metropolitan-Castle is the direct meaning.

Taiwan city meaning

Taipei

The capital city Taipei(台北), Tai is Taiwan’s Tai. This letter means table or high land, like that image.

Pei is 北 which already come Beijing’s Bei. It’s North. That is why Taipei means Taiwan-North.

And, Taiwan has large city in the South. It’s Tainan台南. Tai is same, and Nan is South. Taiwan-South. Good for memorizing.

If you only had looked alphabet city names, the pronunciation and languages are differnt, you might feel complicated. But East Asian large cities are simply naming on Chinese letter based:D

Thank you for reading.