Old and New Names of Countries and Cities: GK List

The correct answer is B, Thailand. The kingdom was called Siam until 1939, when it took the name Thailand, understood as the land of the free, a name that fits the fact that it is the one country of South-East Asia never ruled by a European power. Option A is wrong because Myanmar was called Burma until 1989, and its own earlier capital Rangoon became Yangon at the same time. Option C is wrong because Vietnam formed part of French Indochina, and it is its southern city Saigon that was renamed, becoming Ho Chi Minh City in 1976. Option D is wrong because Cambodia was known as Kampuchea for a period and in older history as Kambuja, the land of the Khmer kings who built Angkor Wat. Learning the four South-East Asian changes as one group, Siam, Burma, Kampuchea and Saigon, keeps them apart in the examination hall.

The correct answer is C, 1972, the year the island became a republic and took the name Sri Lanka in place of Ceylon. Option A is wrong because 1948 is the year it became independent, while still called Ceylon, so the two dates are often mixed up and the question is set precisely for that reason. Option B is wrong because 1956 belongs to the language legislation of the island and to no change of the country's name. Option D is wrong because 1989 is the year Burma became Myanmar, which is the other favourite date in this group. The island's capital is another trap worth noting: the commercial capital is Colombo but the administrative and legislative capital is Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, and papers often ask for the second name. So the chain to remember is independence in 1948, republic and the name Sri Lanka in 1972.

The correct answer is B, Ghana. The British colony of the Gold Coast, named for the gold traded from its shore, became independent in 1957 under the name Ghana, which was taken from a medieval West African empire, and it was the first colony of sub-Saharan Africa to win its freedom. Option A is wrong because Nigeria kept its name, which comes from the river Niger, when it became independent in 1960. Option C is wrong because Ivory Coast, which prefers the French form Côte d'Ivoire, has carried that name throughout and is a different country altogether. Option D is wrong because Sierra Leone, the land of the lion mountains, also kept its older name. In this group the renamed countries are the Gold Coast to Ghana, Nyasaland to Malawi, Bechuanaland to Botswana and Basutoland to Lesotho.

The correct answer is B, Burkina Faso, which was called Upper Volta after the branches of the river Volta that cross it and took its present name in 1984; the new name is drawn from two of its own languages and is read as the land of upright people. Option A is wrong, and it is the usual trap, because Benin is the new name of Dahomey, which was renamed in 1975, so the two West African pairs are offered against each other. Option C is wrong because Mali was French Sudan before independence, which is a different old name worth remembering separately. Option D is wrong because Niger has kept its name, which it shares with the river and with Nigeria. The safe way to hold this group is as three lines: Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, Dahomey to Benin and French Sudan to Mali.

The correct answer is B, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Northern Rhodesia became Zambia on independence in 1964 and Southern Rhodesia became Zimbabwe in 1980, the new name being taken from the stone ruins of Great Zimbabwe. Option A is wrong because it reverses the pair, which is exactly the error the question is built to catch; the way to keep it straight is that the northern country took the shorter name. Option C is wrong because Malawi was Nyasaland, the third territory of the old federation, and not a Rhodesia at all. Option D is wrong because Namibia was South West Africa until 1990 and Botswana was Bechuanaland until 1966, which belong to a different group of changes. The three territories of the Central African Federation, Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, are best learnt as one line.

The correct answer is A, Eswatini. The small southern African monarchy announced the change in 2018 on the fiftieth anniversary of its independence, the new name meaning the land of the Swazi in the Swati language, and it is now listed at the United Nations as the Kingdom of Eswatini. Option B is wrong because Lesotho, the other landlocked kingdom of the region, was formerly Basutoland and was renamed on independence in 1966. Option C is wrong because Eritrea separated from Ethiopia in 1993 and did not change its own name. Option D is wrong because Botswana was Bechuanaland until 1966. The two recent changes most often asked together are Swaziland to Eswatini in 2018 and Macedonia to North Macedonia in 2019, the second made under an agreement with Greece over the use of the name. Eswatini is also one of the few absolute monarchies left in the world, which is a separate fact papers like to attach to it.

The correct answer is B, Istanbul. Founded as Byzantium, the city became Constantinople as the capital of the eastern Roman empire and was officially renamed Istanbul in 1930; it straddles the Bosphorus and so lies partly in Europe and partly in Asia. Option A is wrong because Ankara is the capital of the country, and the fact that the capital is not the largest city is itself a favourite question. Option C is wrong because Izmir, on the Aegean coast, was earlier called Smyrna, which is a separate pair worth knowing. Option D is wrong because Athens, the capital of Greece, has borne its name since antiquity. The country itself is now registered at the United Nations as Türkiye, a change made in 2022, and papers have begun to ask for that spelling as well.

The correct answer is B, Ho Chi Minh City. Saigon was the capital of South Vietnam, and after the north and the south were united the city was renamed in 1976 after Ho Chi Minh, the leader of the Vietnamese independence movement. Option A is wrong because Hanoi was the capital of North Vietnam and is the capital of the united country today; Saigon is the larger commercial city, and the pair Hanoi for the capital and Ho Chi Minh City for the largest city is often tested. Option C is wrong because Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia. Option D is wrong because Vientiane is the capital of Laos. Three renamings of this kind, driven by a change of regime, are Saigon to Ho Chi Minh City, St Petersburg to Leningrad and back again, and Stalingrad to Volgograd.

The correct answer is C, 2011. Parliament passed the law that changed the English spelling of the state's name to Odisha, together with a constitutional amendment that changed the name of its language from Oriya to Odia, so that both matched the local pronunciation. Option A is wrong because 2001 is the year Calcutta became Kolkata. Option B is wrong because 2007 is the year Uttaranchal became Uttarakhand, which is the other state level change of this period. Option D is wrong because 2014 is the year Bangalore became Bengaluru along with several other cities of Karnataka. A list of state changes worth holding is Uttaranchal to Uttarakhand in 2007, Orissa to Odisha in 2011, and Pondicherry, which is a union territory, to Puducherry in 2006. Note also that Odisha was carved out as a separate province in 1936, which is a different date and a common distractor in questions about the state.

The correct answer is A, Prayagraj. The city at the meeting of the Ganga and the Yamuna, where the Kumbh is held, was renamed Prayagraj in 2018, and in the same year the Faizabad district of the state was renamed Ayodhya and Mughalsarai Junction became Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Junction. Option B is wrong because Prayag is the older name of the place of confluence and the form used in the texts, but the name notified for the city was Prayagraj, with the suffix meaning king of the places of sacrifice. Option C is wrong because Ayodhya is the separate renaming of the Faizabad district in the same year. Option D is wrong because Varanasi, earlier written Benares in English and known in the texts as Kashi, is a different city altogether and was not renamed in 2018.

The correct answer is B, Swaraj Dweep. Three islands were renamed in 2018: Ross Island became Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Dweep, Neil Island became Shaheed Dweep and Havelock Island became Swaraj Dweep, the words Shaheed and Swaraj being the names Netaji himself had used for the islands during the Second World War. Option A is wrong because Shaheed Dweep is the new name of Neil Island, and swapping the two is the exact trap in this question. Option C is wrong because that name belongs to Ross Island, which lies near Port Blair and holds the ruins of the old British administrative station. Option D is wrong because no island of the group carries that name, although a well known rock memorial to Swami Vivekananda stands at Kanyakumari, far from the Andamans.