Afghanistan
"Land of the Afghans," using the Persian suffix -stan. Afghan was originally the Persian name for the Pashtuns and is first attested in the 10th century; its own origin is unknown.
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Most country names fall into a handful of patterns. Many are a people with a suffix meaning land: France is the land of the Franks, Thailand of the Thai, Eswatini of the Swazi. Many describe the ground itself (Montenegro, Iceland, Costa Rica) or take the name of a river (Niger, Zambia, India, Paraguay). Others honour a saint or a monarch (Saint Lucia, the Philippines, Mauritius), borrow the name of a city (Algeria, Tunisia, Mexico), or were coined outright in the last century (Burkina Faso, Pakistan, Tanzania).
A fair number are simply unknown. Chile, Andorra, Nauru, Oman, and Serbia all have several competing explanations and no winner, and the cards say so rather than pick one. Where a popular story is folk etymology, such as Senegal's "our canoe" or Azerbaijan's "land of fire," the card says that too.
"Land of the Afghans," using the Persian suffix -stan. Afghan was originally the Persian name for the Pashtuns and is first attested in the 10th century; its own origin is unknown.
From the Albanoi, an Illyrian tribe recorded by Ptolemy in the 2nd century, and their town Albanopolis. Albanians call the country Shqipëri, popularly "land of the eagles," though linguists favour a derivation from shqiptoj, "to speak clearly."
From its capital, Algiers. The Arabic al-Jazāʾir means "the islands," after islets that once stood off the harbour.
Uncertain. Candidates include a Navarro-Aragonese andurrial, "scrubland," and a Basque root. The old story tracing it to Charlemagne is legend.
From ngola, the title of the kings of Ndongo, a Kimbundu kingdom.
Columbus named Antigua in 1493 after Santa María de la Antigua, an image in Seville Cathedral. Barbuda is probably Spanish for "bearded," for the fig trees' hanging roots or the islanders' beards.
From Latin argentum, "silver," through the Spanish Río de la Plata, "river of silver," named for the silver trinkets early explorers saw and the legendary Sierra de la Plata they sought.
From Greek Armenía, first used in Persian sources (Armina) around 520 BC, possibly after the Urartian region Armini or the Hayasa-Azzi people. Armenians call themselves Hay and the country Hayastan, after the legendary patriarch Hayk.
From Latin Terra Australis, "southern land," the hypothetical continent of ancient geography. Matthew Flinders pressed for the name after circumnavigating the continent in 1803, and it was official by 1824.
From Old High German Ostarrîchi, "eastern realm," first recorded in 996. The Latin form Austria took on the look of Latin auster, "south wind," by coincidence of sound.
From Atropates, a Persian satrap of Media who kept power after Alexander's conquest; his realm, Atropatene, became Persian Āzarbāygān. The popular "land of fire," linking it to āzar and the Zoroastrian fire temples, is folk etymology.
Probably from Spanish baja mar, "shallow sea," for the banks; a Lucayan word for the islands is the alternative.
Arabic for "two seas," though which two is disputed: the bays either side of the island, or the saltwater gulf and the freshwater springs beneath it.
Bengali Bangla, "Bengal," plus desh, "country." Bengal is of uncertain origin; the usual guess is the Vanga, a people of the Ganges delta named in the Mahabharata.
Portuguese os Barbados, "the bearded ones," for the bearded fig trees whose hanging roots the sailors saw.
"White Rus'." Why "white" is unsettled: the leading guesses are the direction white stood for in the old colour compass, land free of Mongol tribute, or the pale dress of its people.
From the Belgae, the tribes Caesar met in northern Gaul. Their name may come from a Celtic root meaning "to swell," as in "the proud" or "the furious."
Uncertain. The Maya belix, "muddy water," for the Belize River is the leading theory; the older story deriving it from the buccaneer Peter Wallace is doubtful.
Adopted in 1975 from the Bight of Benin, which was named after the old Kingdom of Benin in today's Nigeria. That name probably comes from Ubini, the Edo name for the kingdom's capital. Benin replaced "Dahomey" as a neutral choice.
Probably from Sanskrit Bhoṭa-anta, "end of Tibet," since it lay at the southern edge of the Tibetan world. The Bhutanese call it Druk Yul, "land of the thunder dragon."
Named in 1825 after Simón Bolívar, the liberator. The congress first chose "República Bolívar" and then the Latin-sounding Bolivia.
Bosnia is from the river Bosna, probably Illyrian and perhaps meaning "running water." Herzegovina is from German Herzog, "duke," after Stjepan Vukčić Kosača styled himself duke of the region in 1448.
"Land of the Tswana."
From pau-brasil, brazilwood, the red dye tree the Portuguese cut on the coast; brasa is "ember." The name displaced the official Terra de Santa Cruz, "land of the Holy Cross."
Uncertain. A Malay tradition has the founder exclaim Baru nah!, "there now!", on finding the site; a Sanskrit varuṇ, "seafarers," is also proposed. Borneo, the name of the whole island, is the same word.
"Land of the Bulgars," a Turkic people who crossed the Danube in the 7th century. Their name is often traced to a Turkic verb meaning "to mix" or "to stir," hence "mixed people," but this is uncertain.
Coined by Thomas Sankara in 1984. Burkina is Mooré for "upright people," and faso is Dioula for "fatherland."
"Land of the Rundi."
Portuguese for "green cape." It is named after Cap-Vert in Senegal, not after the islands themselves.
Through French Cambodge from Khmer Kampuchea, from Sanskrit Kambuja, a people of the northwest Indian frontier whose name Khmer kings adopted for their line.
From Portuguese Rio dos Camarões, "river of prawns." The name came from shrimp swarming in the Wouri River in 1472.
From the Iroquoian kanata, "village" or "settlement," which Jacques Cartier heard at Stadacona in 1535 and applied to the whole region.
Purely descriptive. Its colonial name, Ubangi-Shari, came from two rivers.
From Lake Chad, probably from a Kanuri word meaning "lake" or "large expanse of water."
Uncertain. Candidates include a Quechua chiri, "cold," an Aymara chilli, "where the land ends," a Mapuche word for a thrush's call, and a Picunche chief named Tili.
Through Persian and Sanskrit Cīna, almost certainly from the Qin state and dynasty that unified the country in 221 BC. The Chinese name, Zhōngguó, means "central state" or "middle kingdom."
After Christopher Columbus, who never set foot in it. Francisco de Miranda proposed the name for the whole of Spanish America; Bolívar's Gran Colombia took it in 1819.
From Arabic qamar, "moon," as in Juzur al-Qamar, "Islands of the Moon."
From the Congo River, named after the Kingdom of Kongo and the Bakongo people; Kongo may come from nkongo, "hunter," but this is uncertain. "Democratic" distinguishes it from its neighbour. From 1971 to 1997 it was Zaire, from a Portuguese spelling of the Kikongo nzere, "river."
From the Congo River, named after the Kingdom of Kongo and the Bakongo people. Kongo may come from nkongo, "hunter," but this is uncertain.
Spanish for "rich coast," a name Columbus is said to have given in 1502 on seeing natives wearing gold. The gold was not local, and the colony stayed poor.
French for "Ivory Coast," after the ivory trade. The government has asked since 1986 that the French form be used in every language.
"Land of the Croats," whose own name, Hrvati, is of uncertain origin. The most-cited theory derives it from an Iranian word, perhaps the Khoroathos of the Tanais inscriptions.
From Taíno, probably cubao, "where fertile land is abundant," or coabana, "great place." The suggestion that Columbus named it after Cuba in Portugal is unlikely.
Ancient and uncertain. The classical guess was the cypress tree; the island's copper, named after Cyprus rather than the other way round, is another; a Sumerian word for bronze is a third.
"Land of the Czechs." The ethnonym is traditionally traced to the legendary forefather Čech, and linguistically to a root meaning "kinsman" or "member of the people," though neither is secure. Czechia became the official short English form in 2016.
"March of the Danes," the border territory of the Dani. The tribe's name may come from a root meaning "flat land" or "low ground," which is debated.
Named after its capital, and the origin is uncertain. The most-cited theory is an Afar word for a woven palm-fibre plate or mat.
Latin for "Sunday": Columbus sighted it on Sunday, 3 November 1493. Not to be confused with the Dominican Republic.
From Santo Domingo, the capital, founded in 1496 and named after Saint Dominic, founder of the Dominican order and name saint of Columbus's father.
Spanish for "equator," which runs just north of Quito. The name was chosen in 1830 as a neutral alternative to Quito, which the other provinces resented.
From Greek Aígyptos, which comes from Egyptian Ḥwt-kꜣ-Ptḥ, "house of the soul of Ptah." That was a temple name at Memphis.
Spanish for "the Saviour," after Pedro de Alvarado's province of San Salvador, founded in 1525 and named for Jesus Christ.
Guinea plus its position near the equator.
Italian, from Latin Mare Erythraeum, which comes from Greek erythrós, "red." The name refers to the Red Sea.
From the Aesti, a people Tacitus placed on the Baltic shore in 98 AD, though they were probably Balts rather than Estonians. How the name shifted to the Finnic people is unclear.
"Land of the Swazi." The people are named after King Mswati II.
From Greek aithō, "burn," and ōps, "face," meaning "land of burnt faces." Ethiopian tradition instead credits Ityopp'is, a descendant of Cush.
The Tongan pronunciation of Viti, the Fijians' own name for their main island, which Captain Cook heard and wrote down in 1774.
"Land of the Finns," a name outsiders gave. Finns call it Suomi, of uncertain origin; "swamp land" and a borrowed word for "land" or "people" are both proposed.
"Land of the Franks." The Frankish name is often derived from a Germanic word for a javelin (Old English franca) or from an adjective meaning "free," since only Franks had full freedom under their rule. Which sense came first is disputed.
From Portuguese gabão, a hooded cloak, after the shape of the Komo estuary.
From the Gambia River, whose name is of uncertain origin and possibly Mandinka. The link to Portuguese câmbio, "trade," is likely folk etymology.
From Persian Gurğ via Arabic and Syriac, the Persian name for the people; Western Europeans then tied the name to St George. Georgians call it Sakartvelo, "the land of the Kartvelians," after the legendary ancestor Kartlos.
From Latin Germania, which Caesar used for the lands east of the Rhine; the origin of Germani is unknown, with Celtic guesses such as "neighbour" or "shouter." Germans call it Deutschland, from Old High German diutisc, "of the people," meaning the vernacular as opposed to Latin.
Named in 1957 after the medieval Ghana Empire, which lay farther northwest. Ghana was the Soninke title of its king, roughly "warrior king."
From Latin Graecia, after the Graikoi, a tribe of Epirus the Romans met early. Greeks call it Hellas, after the legendary Hellen, son of Deucalion.
After Granada in Spain, which Spanish sailors thought the hills resembled; the French made it La Grenade and the British Grenada.
From Nahuatl Cuauhtēmallān, "place of many trees," the name Alvarado's Tlaxcalan allies gave to the Kʼicheʼ heartland in 1524.
From Portuguese Guiné, probably from a Berber term meaning "land of the Black people." Some derive it from the city of Djenné instead.
Guinea plus its capital, Bissau, added to distinguish it from Guinea.
From an Indigenous word, probably Arawak or Carib, usually glossed as "land of many waters."
Taíno Ayiti, "land of high mountains," the Indigenous name for the whole island of Hispaniola, revived at independence in 1804.
Spanish for "depths," by tradition from Columbus's remark on escaping a storm in 1502: Gracias a Dios que hemos salido de esas honduras, "thank God we have left those depths." The story is probably invented; the deep coastal water is the likelier reason.
From medieval Latin Hungaria, from the Turkic Onogur, "ten arrows" or "ten tribes," a confederation the Magyars were associated with. The initial H came from a false link with the Huns. Hungarians call it Magyarország, "land of the Magyars."
Icelandic Ísland, "land of ice." Tradition says the settler Flóki Vilgerðarson named it after seeing a fjord full of drift ice.
From the river Indus, through Persian Hindu and Greek Indós, from Sanskrit Sindhu, "river." The Hindi name Bharat comes from Bharata, the legendary emperor of the Mahabharata.
Coined in 1850 by British scholars from Greek Indos, "India," and nēsos, "island": the Indian islands. Nationalists adopted it in the 1920s.
From Middle Persian Ērān, "land of the Aryans," the Iranian peoples' own name for themselves. The country asked the world to use Iran instead of Persia in 1935; Persia comes from Pars, one province, today's Fars.
Arabic al-ʿIrāq, used since the 6th century for lower Mesopotamia. It is usually traced to Middle Persian Erāq, "lowland," or to the Sumerian city of Uruk.
Irish Éire plus Old English land. Éire comes from the goddess Ériu, whose name probably derives from a root meaning "abundant" or "fat," as in fertile land.
Hebrew Yisraʾel, the name given to Jacob in Genesis after he wrestled with the angel; it is usually read as "he struggles with God." The modern state took it in 1948.
From Latin Italia, originally the southern tip of the peninsula. The usual derivation is Oscan Víteliú, "land of calves" or "young cattle," perhaps for a bull totem; the name spread north as Rome's rule did.
Taíno Xaymaca, usually read as "land of wood and water" or "land of springs."
From Chinese readings of 日本, "sun origin," the land where the sun rises as seen from China; Marco Polo's Cipangu came from a southern Chinese pronunciation. The Japanese say Nihon or Nippon.
From the river Jordan, Hebrew Yarden, probably from a root meaning "to descend," as the river drops steeply to the Dead Sea.
"Land of the Kazakhs." The ethnonym is Turkic and usually read as "wanderer" or "free man," from a root meaning to roam; Cossack is the same word by another route.
From Mount Kenya, via the Kamba name Kiinyaa. This is usually glossed as "ostrich," for the mountain's black-and-white streaks.
The Gilbertese pronunciation of "Gilberts," after Captain Thomas Gilbert, who sailed through in 1788. Gilbertese has no "l" or "s" sounds, so Gilberts became Kiribati.
From Serbian kos, "blackbird": Kosovo polje is "field of blackbirds," the plain where the battle of 1389 against the Ottomans was fought. Albanians call it Kosova or Kosovë.
Diminutive of Arabic kūt, a fortress built near water, so "little fort." The kūt was an 18th-century fort on the bay.
"Land of the Kyrgyz." A popular derivation is kyrk, "forty," for the forty clans of the hero Manas, echoed in the forty rays on the flag; linguists are not agreed.
From the Lao people, with a French plural -s added for the several Lao kingdoms. The ethnonym's own origin is uncertain.
From the Latgalians, one of the Baltic tribes that merged into the Latvian people. The root is unexplained; a river name is one guess.
From the Semitic root lbn, "white," for the snow on Mount Lebanon; the name is recorded as Laban in Eblaite and Labnan in Assyrian texts.
"Land of the Sotho."
From Latin liber, "free." It was founded as a homeland for freed American slaves.
From Greek Libyē, which comes from the Egyptian name for the Libu, a Berber people.
Named after the ruling House of Liechtenstein, which bought the lordships of Schellenberg and Vaduz in 1699 and 1712 and had them joined as a principality in 1719. The family took its name from Liechtenstein Castle near Vienna, "bright stone."
Of uncertain origin. The traditional link is to the small river Lietava near Kernavė; another theory derives it from leičiai, a name for a warrior caste in the medieval state.
From Lucilinburhuc, "little fortress," the castle Count Siegfried acquired in 963 on the Bock promontory.
From Marco Polo's "Madeigascar," a garbled reference to Mogadishu that he misapplied to the island.
From the Maravi kingdom, often glossed as "flames" or "rays of light."
Malaya plus the Greek-style suffix -sia, adopted in 1963 when Sabah, Sarawak, and Singapore joined. Malay is often traced to a river or kingdom named Melayu in Sumatra, perhaps from a Tamil or Sanskrit word for "hill."
Probably from Sanskrit mālā-dvīpa, "garland of islands," or from a Dravidian word for "high" or "great" plus dvīpa, "island."
From the Mali Empire. The meaning is debated: it may be Mandinka for "hippopotamus," or a variant of Manden, the Mandinka heartland.
Probably from Phoenician maleth, "haven" or "refuge." The Greek melítē, "honey-sweet," is the older popular derivation, after the island's honey and bees.
After Captain John Marshall, who charted them with Thomas Gilbert in 1788.
From Latin Mauretania, "land of the Mauri" (Moors). The Roman province actually covered today's Morocco and northern Algeria.
Named by the Dutch in 1598 after Prince Maurice of Nassau.
From Nahuatl Mēxihco, the Aztec capital's territory, of disputed meaning. "Place in the navel of the moon" (mētztli and xīctli) is the favourite; a derivation from Mexitli, a name of the god Huitzilopochtli, is the other main candidate.
Greek for "small islands," coined by Jules Dumont d'Urville in 1831 along with Melanesia and Polynesia.
From the river Moldova in Romania, where the medieval principality began. Legend credits the voivode Dragoș's hound Molda, who drowned in the river; the real root is probably Gothic or Slavic, perhaps mulda, "dust" or "loose earth."
From Greek Monoikos, "single house" or "solitary dweller," an epithet of Heracles worshipped at a temple there. The Ligurians may have supplied a similar-sounding older name.
"Land of the Mongols." The ethnonym appears in Tang-dynasty records; proposed meanings include "brave" and a link to mönkh, "eternal," but none is established.
Venetian for "black mountain," a calque of the Serbian Crna Gora, after the dark forests on Mount Lovćen.
From Marrakesh, via Spanish Marruecos. Marrakesh possibly comes from Berber amur n akuch, "land of God."
From Mozambique Island, named after a local ruler or trader, Musa Bin Bique.
The literary form of Bama, the Burmese ethnonym, which gave "Burma" in English. Both are the same word; the junta made Myanmar the official English name in 1989. The ethnonym's origin is uncertain, perhaps from Brahma.
From the Namib Desert, a Khoekhoe word meaning "vast place."
Uncertain. The usual guess is Nauruan anáoero, "I go to the beach."
Uncertain. Traditions derive it from the sage Ne who protected (pāla) the valley, or from the Newar people; a Tibetan ne pa, "home of wool," is another guess.
"Low countries," in use since the 16th century for the Rhine, Meuse, and Scheldt delta. "Holland," strictly two of its provinces, comes from Old Dutch holtland, "wooded land," not from "hollow land."
After Zeeland, the Dutch province, given by Dutch cartographers after Abel Tasman's visit in 1642; Tasman himself had called it Staten Landt. The Māori name Aotearoa is usually read as "land of the long white cloud."
Usually from Nicarao, the chief who received the conquistador Gil González Dávila in 1522, plus Spanish agua, "water," for the great lakes. Some read it as a Nahuatl phrase, "here by the water."
From the Niger River, often traced to Tuareg gher n-gheren, "river of rivers." Latin niger, "black," likely shaped the spelling rather than being the origin.
"Niger area." The name was coined in 1897 by Flora Shaw (later Lady Lugard) in The Times.
Korea comes from Goryeo, the dynasty that ruled from 918 to 1392, itself short for Goguryeo, an earlier kingdom whose name may mean "high castle" or "walled town." The North calls itself Chosŏn, after the Joseon dynasty and the ancient Gojoseon, popularly if loosely "land of the morning calm."
From the ancient kingdom of Macedon. The Greek Makedónes is usually read as "highlanders" or "the tall ones," from makednós, "tall." "North" was added in 2019 to settle the naming dispute with Greece.
Old Norse Norðvegr, "the north way," the coastal sailing route. A minority view reads the first part as nór, "narrow," for the strait-like coast.
Ancient and uncertain. Pliny recorded Omana; Arab tradition points to a founder named Oman or to a settlement named after a place in Yemen.
Coined in 1933 by Choudhry Rahmat Ali at Cambridge as an acronym for Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Sindh, and Baluchistan, which also reads in Urdu and Persian as "land of the pure." The original spelling was Pakstan; the "i" was added for ease of saying.
From the Palauan Belau, perhaps from beluu, "village," or aibebelau, "indirect replies," linked to a creation myth. Spanish Los Palaos gave the English form.
From Greek Palaistínē, Herodotus's name for the coastal region, from the Philistines (Pelišt), the sea people who settled around Gaza about 1200 BC. The Romans applied it to the whole province in 135 AD.
Of uncertain Indigenous origin. The usual gloss is "abundance of fish" or "many butterflies"; the documentary starting point is a fishing village of that name that Pedrarias Dávila took over in 1519.
Papua is probably from Malay papuwah, "frizzy-haired." New Guinea was given by the Spaniard Yñigo Ortiz de Retez in 1545, who thought the people resembled those of Guinea in Africa.
From the river Paraguay, a Guaraní name usually read as "river of the crowned ones," after the Payaguá people, or "water that flows to the water"; no reading is settled.
Probably from Birú, a chieftain or river on the Pacific coast of Panama, whose name the Spanish extended southward to everything beyond it. Pizarro's expeditions fixed the spelling.
Named in 1543 by the explorer Ruy López de Villalobos as Las Islas Filipinas, after Philip II of Spain, then crown prince.
"Land of the Polans," a West Slavic tribe whose name comes from pole, "field," hence "people of the open fields."
From Portus Cale, the Roman name for the port at the mouth of the Douro, today's Porto and Gaia. Cale itself is obscure: a Celtic or Greek word for "beautiful," or a settlement of the Gallaeci.
Ancient and uncertain. Pliny's Catharrei and Ptolemy's Catara are the earliest forms; one Arabic derivation points to qatran, "tar" or "pitch," for the peninsula's bitumen seeps.
From Latin Romanus, "Roman," asserting descent from the colonists of Roman Dacia. The spelling with "o" replaced "Rumania" in the 20th century at Romanian insistence.
From Rus', the medieval state centred on Kyiv, and from the Rus' people. The dominant view traces Rus' to the Finnic name for Swedes, Ruotsi, from an Old Norse word for rowers; the Byzantine Greek Rhōssía gave the modern form.
Probably from a Kinyarwanda verb meaning "to expand," reflecting the kingdom's growth.
Columbus named the first Saint Christopher, after his own patron saint, which English settlers shortened to Kitts. Nevis is from Spanish Nuestra Señora de las Nieves, "Our Lady of the Snows," for the cloud over its peak.
After Saint Lucy of Syracuse, probably because the French arrived on her feast day, 13 December.
After Saint Vincent of Saragossa, whose feast day, 22 January, is traditionally the date Columbus sighted the island in 1498. The Grenadines are "little Grenadas."
Of disputed meaning. "Sacred centre" (sa, sacred, and moa, centre) and "place of the moa bird" are both offered; tradition also names a figure called Samoa.
After Saint Marinus, a stonemason from Rab in Dalmatia who, by tradition, founded a monastic community on Monte Titano in 301.
São Tomé ("St Thomas") was sighted on his feast day around 1470. Príncipe ("prince") was renamed for the Portuguese crown prince, who received its sugar revenues.
"Arabia of the House of Saud," after Muhammad bin Saud, the 18th-century emir of Diriyah whose descendant Ibn Saud founded the kingdom in 1932. Arabia comes from the Arabs, whose name may mean "nomad" or "desert dweller."
From the Senegal River, probably named after the Zenaga Berbers. The popular Wolof sunu gaal, "our canoe," is folk etymology.
"Land of the Serbs." The ethnonym is old and unexplained; proposals include a Proto-Slavic word for "ally" or "kinsman" and an Iranian loan.
Named after Jean Moreau de Séchelles, Louis XV's finance minister.
From Portuguese Serra Leoa, "lion mountains," a name given in 1462. It is unclear whether this was for the hills' shape or thunder that sounded like roaring.
From Sanskrit Siṃhapura, "lion city," by tradition given by the Srivijayan prince Sang Nila Utama, who saw a lion-like beast on landing. There were no lions; it was probably a tiger.
"Land of the Slovaks." The name is simply "Slav" with an adjectival ending. Slav itself is debated: "people of the word" (slovo), "the famous" (slava), or a river name are the candidates.
Likewise "land of the Slavs," from the same root as Slovakia; the two are told apart only by their endings. The form Slovenija was coined in the 19th century.
Named in 1568 by Álvaro de Mendaña, who hoped they were the source of King Solomon's gold. They were not.
"Land of the Somali." Popular derivations are so maal, "go and milk," or a legendary ancestor named Samaale, and neither is settled.
Descriptive.
Korea comes from Goryeo, the dynasty that ruled from 918 to 1392, itself short for Goguryeo, an earlier kingdom whose name may mean "high castle" or "walled town." The South calls itself Hanguk, "country of the Han," after the Samhan confederacies of the south, not the Chinese Han.
Sudan plus its direction, taken in 2011.
From Latin Hispania, which the Romans took from the Carthaginians. The favoured derivation is Punic ʾÎ-šapanîm, "island of hyraxes," because the Phoenicians mistook rabbits for hyraxes; a Basque or Celtic source is also argued.
Sanskrit Lanka, the island's name in the Ramayana, with the honorific Sri, "resplendent." Ceylon, the old name, came through Portuguese from Sanskrit Siṃhala, "lion people," the ethnonym of the Sinhalese.
From Arabic bilād as-sūdān, "land of the Black people."
From the Surinen, a people the first Europeans met there; the English Surinam is the same word.
"Land of the Swedes" (Old English Swēoþēod). The Svear's own name may come from a reflexive pronoun meaning "one's own people."
From Schwyz, one of the three cantons that swore the founding oath of 1291, whose name is of uncertain origin and possibly from a word meaning "to burn," for cleared land. The abbreviation CH stands for Confoederatio Helvetica, after the Helvetii, the Celtic tribe Caesar fought.
From Greek Syría, generally accepted as a shortening of Assyria, which the Greeks applied loosely to the whole Levant. Assyria itself comes from the city of Aššur.
From Tayouan, the name of a sandbar and Siraya settlement near today's Tainan where the Dutch built Fort Zeelandia in 1624; it spread to the whole island. The official name, Republic of China, dates from 1912.
"Land of the Tajiks." Tajik was the Turkic name for Persian speakers, probably from the Arab tribe of Tayy, since the word first meant "Arab" and then "Muslim" before settling on the Persian-speaking population.
A 1964 blend of Tanganyika and Zanzibar. Zanzibar comes from Persian for "coast of the Black people." Tanganyika comes from the lake, and its meaning is uncertain.
"Land of the Thai," adopted in 1939 in place of Siam. Thai is usually glossed as "free," though it is more likely simply the ethnonym Tai, "person" or "people" in the Tai languages. Siam probably comes from Sanskrit śyāma, "dark," or a Mon word for "stranger."
Malay timur, "east," plus Portuguese leste, also "east," so "East East." Timor was the eastern end of the Lesser Sunda Islands as sailors from the west saw them.
From Ewe to, "water" or "lagoon," and go, "shore," originally the name of a town on Lake Togo.
Tongan for "south," since the islands lie south of Samoa and Fiji; the related Polynesian word also means "southerly wind."
Columbus named Trinidad for the Holy Trinity in 1498, having vowed to name his first landfall after it; three peaks on the coast fitted. Tobago is probably from tabaco, the Taíno word for tobacco or the pipe used to smoke it.
From its capital, Tunis. The city's name is ancient and of uncertain origin, possibly a Berber root or the Punic goddess Tanit.
"Land of the Turks," from medieval Latin Turchia. Turk is attested from the 6th-century Göktürk inscriptions and is often read as "strong"; the government asked the UN to use Türkiye in 2022.
"Land of the Turkmen." The ethnonym is usually explained as Turk plus the Sogdian suffix -men, "Turk-like," though the medieval folk reading was Persian Turk-mānand, with the same meaning.
Tuvaluan for "eight standing together," for the eight traditionally inhabited atolls of the nine. The country took the name in 1978 in place of Ellice Islands.
The Swahili form of Buganda, the Ganda kingdom.
From the Slavic ukraina, "borderland" or "march," first recorded in 1187 for a region on the Kyivan frontier. A minority of Ukrainian scholars read it as "country" or "homeland" (kraina).
Descriptive. The seven sheikhdoms were the Trucial States under British protection until they federated in 1971; emirate is from Arabic amīr, "commander" or "prince."
Descriptive, from the Act of Union of 1707 and the union with Ireland in 1801. "Britain" comes from the Pritani, the Celtic name for the island's people, perhaps "the painted ones" for their tattoos.
Descriptive, first used in the Declaration of Independence in 1776. America comes from Amerigo Vespucci, whose Latin name Americus was feminised by the mapmaker Martin Waldseemüller in 1507.
From the river Uruguay, a Guaraní name. "River of the painted birds" is the popular reading; "river of the uruguá snails" is the one most linguists accept.
"Land of the Uzbeks." The name is usually traced to Öz Beg Khan, ruler of the Golden Horde in the 14th century, or read as öz, "self," plus beg, "lord": "his own master."
"Our land" or "land that stands," from vanua, "land" or "home," and tu, "to stand," chosen at independence in 1980 in place of New Hebrides.
From Mons Vaticanus, the hill on the Tiber's west bank. The Latin is probably Etruscan in origin; the ancient derivation from vaticinia, "prophecies," reflects soothsayers who worked there but is doubtful.
"Little Venice": Amerigo Vespucci's 1499 expedition saw stilt houses on Lake Maracaibo and thought of Venice. A rival account credits an Indigenous people called the Veneciuela.
Vietnamese Việt Nam, "Việt of the south," from the Chinese Yue, a name for peoples south of the Yangtze, plus nam, "south." Emperor Gia Long adopted it in 1804.
From the desert. Ṣaḥrāʾ is Arabic for "desert," so "Sahara Desert" is technically redundant. The Spanish colony was Spanish Sahara until 1975.
Arabic al-Yaman, usually read as "the right-hand side" or "south," the land to the right when facing east from Mecca; a link to yumn, "felicity," gave the Roman Arabia Felix.
From the Zambezi River, whose name is of uncertain origin.
From Shona dzimba dza mabwe, "houses of stone," after the Great Zimbabwe ruins.