Difference between revisions of "Renamed countries"

Revision as of 20:53, December 8, 2008

Some renamed countries are well known in the West:

Persia => Iran - the language is still called Persian
Siam => Thailand - they speak Siamese or Thai
East Pakistan => Bangladesh - formed after the partition of India, over Gandhi's protest, and independent from Pakistan in 1971.

Others may have escaped all but the best geography students

Former name	Current name	Year of change
Abyssinia	Ethiopia
Basutoland	Lesotho
Bechuanaland	Botswana
Dahomey	Benin
German East Africa (part)	Tanganyika
German East Africa (part)	Ruanda-Urundi	1923
Malgasy Republic	Madagascar	1960
Northern Rhodesia	Zambia
Nyasaland	Malawi
Rhodesia & Southern Rhodesia	Zimbabwe	1980 (Rhodesia 1965)
Ruanda-Urundi (part)	Burundi	1961
Ruanda-Urundi (part)	Rwanda	1961
South West Africa	Namibia	1990
Spanish Sahara	Western Sahara
Tanganyika & Zanzibar	Tanzania
Upper Volta	Burkina Faso
Zaire	Democratic Republic of Congo

@@ Line 67: / Line 67: @@
 *[[Ceylon]] => [[Sri Lanka]]
 *[[Dutch East Indies]] => [[Indonesia]]
+*[[Siam]] => [[Thailand]]
 *[[Van Diemen's Land]] => [[Tasmania]]
 *[[Tasmania]] = > [[Australia]] (part)
+*[[French Indochina]] => [[Cambodia]], [[Laos]], [[Vietnam]]
+*[[Malaya]]=> [[Malaysia]]
 ==Pacific==
 *[[Gilbert and Ellice Islands]] => [[Kiribati]] & [[Tuvalu]]
 *[[New Hebrides]] => [[Vanuatu]]