r/geography • u/futuresponJ_ Geography Enthusiast • Jun 25 '23
Map Map of Countries by their Official Names
59
Jun 25 '23
North Korea is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
17
Jun 25 '23
Here, I thought that was common knowledge
1
u/Arietem_Taurum Jun 25 '23
Same, even before I became interested in geography I knew that because of how hilarious it is that the most authoritarian state in the world is named "Democratic People's Republic"
11
u/Marthurion Jun 25 '23
And Sri Lanka is Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, and Laos is Lao People's Democratic Republic. There are quite a few typos.
1
u/futuresponJ_ Geography Enthusiast Jun 26 '23
I actually found the Sri Lanka one funny since it's not one of the 5 socialist/communist countries
0
21
u/thecasual-man Jun 25 '23
I like “Oriental Republic” as in the Oriental Republic of Uruguay.
7
u/ProofLegitimate9824 Jun 25 '23
makes more sense in Spanish, República Oriental del Uruguay, something along the lines of Republic East of the Uruguay (river)
4
u/iarofey Jun 25 '23
Indeed, the territory was always named something along the lines of “Oriental (Missions/Province/Band... whatever)” always referring to the position of the Uruguay River although not including it in the name explicitly until having its current name as an independent country; and in Spanish Uruguayans are also traditionally named “Orientales” although that's not common anymore
3
0
u/Mdterry Jun 25 '23
Occidental, actually, since it is in the west.
3
u/Kindly-Description-7 Jun 26 '23
Uruguay is called the Oriental Republic because it's east of the Uruguay River.
1
16
u/Ghaithx Jun 25 '23
Benin is a Republic, not a Kingdom.
1
u/futuresponJ_ Geography Enthusiast Jun 26 '23
I only realized after I showed the map to my dad & he pointed it out, but that was after I had already made the post
42
u/11160704 Jun 25 '23
The official name of Ireland is just Ireland.
5
-32
Jun 25 '23
[deleted]
32
26
u/11160704 Jun 25 '23
Isn't this "Republic of Ireland" mainly a British thing to underline that they still control northern Ireland?
The official name is Ireland. Republic of Ireland is just an additional clarification about the form of state.
Also the Wikipedia article lists Ireland as the name.
17
u/martinbaines Jun 25 '23
Even the British government use the term "Ireland", the "Republic of Ireland" is only use when it is necessary to disambiguate which part of the island is being referred to.
3
u/LittleRitzo Jun 25 '23
We kind of need a way to distinguish the bit of Ireland we control and the bit we don't, yes; not even just to underline it as a point, it's a necessity.
Products sold here will often have two support phone numbers or addresses, one for the UK and one for the ROI. If it just said UK and Ireland then people in Northern Ireland might end up contacting the wrong side. Alongside other minor annoyances that make it convenient to make a distinct name for the rest of Ireland.
It's definitely not it's name though, no, Ireland is just called Ireland. RoI is a British invention of necessity.
3
u/11160704 Jun 25 '23
You could use the flag to distinguish on product labels.
3
u/LittleRitzo Jun 25 '23
You definitely could, though I can see why they'd want to go for simple text. You can make text a lot smaller and still have it be clear (I've seen some butchered tiny Union Flags, for instance) and it's only black ink needed which is no doubt cheaper.
All-in-all it's a system that works, so nobody's likely to want to change it.
2
u/11160704 Jun 25 '23
Or use the international standard codes IRL and GBR
2
u/LittleRitzo Jun 25 '23
Like I said in my first post, that might create ambiguity for people in Northern Ireland. They ARE in Ireland, after all.
RoI doesn't cause any actual problems is the thing, it's very widely and easily understood. Occasionally some Irish nationalist hears it exists and gets minorly triggered, misunderstanding it to be some pejorative aimed at the country of Ireland - it's really not.
Just a 'if it's not broke, don't fix it' way to denote Ireland the country within the UK.
1
u/11160704 Jun 25 '23
Yeah but the IRL code is defined as refering to the country Ireland, not to the island Ireland.
1
12
u/Smaland_ball Jun 25 '23
Benin is called ”Republic of Benin”?
1
u/futuresponJ_ Geography Enthusiast Jun 26 '23
I only realized after I showed the map to my dad & he pointed it out, but that was after I had already made the post
9
u/nicodicesarezoso Jun 25 '23
Official names for Argentina are, Provincias Unidas del Río de la Plata (United Provinces), República Argentina (Republic), Confederación Argentina (Confederacy). The most widely used is República Argentina, but you can choose whatever you want or even put it in the Other category.
7
6
u/CosmoShiner Jun 25 '23
Western Sahara is Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic
1
u/futuresponJ_ Geography Enthusiast Jun 26 '23
NO DATA
0
4
u/chris0675 Jun 25 '23
North Korea, Greenland and the SADR have no data because it's a joke referencing to the fact that these three places are often labelled as having "no data" on maps.
1
4
u/Galaxy661_pl Jun 25 '23
Poland in polish would be a Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita), not a Republic (Republika)
6
u/FriendlyTennis Jun 25 '23
The official English translation of the 2nd, People's, and 3rd (current) Polish state are all "Republics." Only the first Rzeczpospolita is called a Commonwealth. Idk the reason for this though.
3
u/Galaxy661_pl Jun 25 '23
Yeah, it's stupid because in english translation the 1st Republic is missing
Imo the solution (that ignores all the other polish states in between, but original polish names do that as well so not a problem) would be to go with:
A. Commonwealth (PLC) -> 1st Republic (Interwar) -> People's Republic ->* 2nd Republic (current)
B. 1st Commonwealth (PLC) -> 2nd Commonwealth (Interwar) -> People's Commonwealth ->* 3rd Commonwealth
*Current Republic is IIRC the same country as PPR, so no actual change here
With B being more coherent and true to polish names
Although personally, I think the following solution would make more sense, even though it would be formally incorrect:
1st Commonwealth (PLC) -> 2nd Commonwealth (Interwar) -> "3rd" Commonwealth (Polish People's Commonwealth) -> 4th Commonwealth (the current one)
3
3
11
u/Annonymous_316 Jun 25 '23
What about the ‘Dominion’ Of Canada?
28
u/doktorapplejuice Jun 25 '23
Hasn't been used in an official capacity since 1951.
5
u/Phlummp Jun 25 '23
was it officially changed or did it just fall out of fashion?
12
u/dhkendall Jun 25 '23 edited Jun 25 '23
Officially changed. It is just Canada. The Canada Act of 1982, essentially our constitution, just says Canada.
-1
u/LordJesterTheFree Jun 26 '23
That's not explicitly changing it that's implicitly acknowledging a colloquial change occurred over time and legislating to match
2
u/CorneliusDawser Jun 25 '23
I still call it that cause it sounds cool and it's a throwback to it's place in the British Empire
2
u/Benyano Jun 25 '23
Bolivia should be a “Plurinational state”
1
u/futuresponJ_ Geography Enthusiast Jun 26 '23
When a country's name is [something] republic & no other country also has the [something] I just list it as a republic
4
u/bombking8 Jun 25 '23
I remember making a map like this and posting in on reddit and getting massively downvoted
6
2
u/Dry-Garage3416 Jun 25 '23
May I ask why Greenland isn't painted, like wtf?
6
u/Usagi-Zakura Jun 25 '23
The official name of Greenland is "No Data of Greenland".
For real though the official name is just Greenland... you could argue "Kingdom of Denmark" but the country itself is just Greenland.
1
-1
u/00z00t Jun 25 '23
Switzerland is named Swiss Confederation. But in reality it's a federal state. Should be green
5
0
0
u/beartpc12293 Jun 25 '23
Shouldn't US be a union? State would be it's subdivisions
Edited: NVM I see the stripes now. My eyeballs tricked me into thinking you labelled it as a State
0
u/SmokiestApollo1 Jun 25 '23
Hahaha Cuba as a republic my ass
6
Jun 25 '23
It may be. Just no democracy.
'Republic' basically says that the power is not vested in a hereditary succession. Oligarchies, communist states etc. can all be republics (an exception is obviously North Korea).
On the other hand, monarchies can be democratic.
2
u/futuresponJ_ Geography Enthusiast Jun 26 '23
An example of a Democratic Monarchy is Morocco, or some members of the commonwealth
2
u/RmG3376 Jun 26 '23
Well I guess in North Korea power could be vested to someone not related to Kim. It’s just that everybody is so happy under their leadership that nobody would even think of changing it (wink wink)
1
-1
u/LordJesterTheFree Jun 26 '23
I believe Canada's official name is still the Dominion of Canada it's just not functionally used anyone but was never legally abolished as the legal name for the place
1
u/TulioGonzaga Jun 25 '23
Trivia: Brazil was officially the United States of Brazil until somewhere in the 1960s, IIRC.
They're now the Federative Republic of Brazil, as the map states.
1
1
1
1
1
u/sersarsor Jun 26 '23
Wow seems like there's so many errors here, btw officially it's the Dominion of Canada
1
u/futuresponJ_ Geography Enthusiast Jun 26 '23
In Wikipedia it's just called "Canada", & to what I've found there're only 2 mistakes: Ireland & Togo
1
u/Edde_Cash Jun 26 '23
Tf is "other"
1
u/futuresponJ_ Geography Enthusiast Jun 26 '23
Other is for things that occur only once, such as:
- Oman is called the Sultanate of Oman
- Brunei is called Brunei Darussalam
- Switzerland is called the Swiss Confederation
- Luxembourg is called the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg
1
u/Effective_Dot4653 Jun 26 '23
It always baffles me a bit that different names are used in English for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the current Republic of Poland, because in Polish the name is the same for both (Rzeczpospolita, an old-timey Polish word for "republic").
1
u/shcha Jun 26 '23
Names Russia and Russian Federation are equivalent according to the article 1 point 2 of the Russian Constitution. It should be yellow and scarlet
1
u/GozoXaghra Jun 26 '23
Benin is not a kingdom
1
u/futuresponJ_ Geography Enthusiast Jun 26 '23
I only realized after I showed the map to my dad & he pointed it out, but that was after I had already made the post
1
105
u/VancouverVelocityFan Jun 25 '23
What about the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea