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Cities by Former Name

Try to guess the modern names of these cities that were formerly known by a different name.
This refers to the city's English name. The native name might have remained unchanged.
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Quizmaster
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Last updated: June 8, 2019
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First submittedJune 8, 2019
Times taken88,493
Average score55.0%
Rating4.84
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Old Name
Current Name
Constantinople
Istanbul
Leningrad
St. Petersburg
Peking
Beijing
Tenochtitlan
Mexico City
Saigon
Ho Chi Minh City
New Amsterdam
New York City
Bombay
Mumbai
Old Name
Current Name
Calcutta
Kolkata
Danzig
Gdańsk
Londinium
London
Madras
Chennai
Edo
Tokyo
Canton
Guangzhou
Stalingrad
Volgograd
Old Name
Current Name
Königsberg
Kaliningrad
Batavia
Jakarta
Léopoldville
Kinshasa
Christiania
Oslo
Smyrna
Izmir
Rangoon
Yangon
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50 Comments
Quizmaster
+5
Level ∞
Jun 8, 2019
This was originally a quiz called "places that changed names". I decided to separate it into two, one for cities and one for countries.
KoljiVriVoda
+14
Level 80
Jun 9, 2019
Fun facts. Constantinople was never an official name of the city it was just a nickname. Official name was New Rome. Also Byzantine Empire was never a name of the country, its citizens never heard of it because it was made up afther the colapse of the Empire. Official name was Roman Empire.
JWatson24
+17
Level 71
Feb 9, 2021
Istanbul was Constantinople, now it's Istanbul not Constantinople

Been a long time gone that Constantinople, like a Turkish Delight on a moonlit night.

Every gal in Constantinople, lives in Istanbul not Constantinople

So if you've got a date in Constantinople, she'll be waiting in Istanbul...

evilcheeser
+5
Level 76
Apr 7, 2022
Also Konstantiniyye *was* the official name of the city for ages (under Ottoman rule), while Istanbul was just a nickname, until the Turks finally decided to change the official name too.

Also the Sultanate of "Rum" is a transliteration of Rome, the country they conquered their lands from, because at the time the Turks also did not call it the Byzantine Empire. The name is really just to delineate the period after the collapse of the Western empire, not anything anyone was calling it at the time.

Interesting how much gets lost in translation.

sunflowa
+5
Level 43
Jun 9, 2019
there is also Mauritsstad being renamed to Recife, in north east brazil after the portuguese retook brazilian land from dutch settlers.

If you ever want to do a part two for cities or add more, id recommend that one, and also Frederikstadt renamed to João Pessoa, same context as the Recife one.

divantilya
+4
Level 36
Jun 9, 2019
Why won't this site use the proper name for old New York? It is Nieuw Amsterdam, not New Amsterdam. And, please do not use that tired old excuse that this is an English language quiz, for all the other place names are used in their original (or transliterated) form.
IsleAuHaulte
+16
Level 92
Jun 10, 2019
Actually, most other old names are anglicized forms.
H3mm0
+5
Level 35
Aug 20, 2019
We don't say Papua Niu Guinea even though that's the pidgin for it, I think since 'new' isn't really a part of the name, but a reference that it's being named after a previous city means a little less semantics are necessary.
Sifhraven
+3
Level 76
Aug 20, 2019
So new york is actually simply york? And newcastle is castle? And nova scotia is scotia? ANd ah new mexico is mexico? Yes the "new" in whatever form is the reference to the original city, but definitely part of the name!

And perhaps not in some, but in most cases with that intention from the start. Places are called after/in honor of existing places, not (usualy) the exact same name. Especially in cases of newly conquered/explored land.

"I hereby declare these lands, New Jetpunk!"

towns later established and/or playing a less important role in the settling often do have simple copies of names.

evilcheeser
+4
Level 76
Apr 7, 2022
Uhh... I don't think that's what anyone was saying, Sifhraven. It was more to do with writing "New" in English or in another language, not about leaving it out altogether.
JackintheBox
+4
Level 82
Aug 20, 2019
No.
amm14
+7
Level 65
Aug 20, 2019
"And please don't give me the correct answer to my question."

FIFY.

JWatson24
+3
Level 71
Feb 9, 2021
(Even old New York, was once New Amsterdam...

Why they changed it I can't say, people just liked it better that way)

So, take me back to Constantinople

No, you can't go back to Constantinople

Been a long time gone that Constantinople

Why did Constantinople get the works?

That's nobody's business but the Turks!

jennyfleur
+7
Level 65
Jun 20, 2019
As you are updating this quiz anyway, why not add the capital formerly known as Astana?
Goofster
+1
Level 51
Aug 6, 2019
And Bujumbura
tzhg
+6
Level 58
Aug 6, 2019
Bujumbura never changed its name, Gitega is another city.
Sesel
+1
Level 43
Jul 4, 2025
Bujumbura was "Usumbura" in colonial times
BaliVibing
+2
Level 80
Oct 20, 2020
And Almaty perhaps, or Almaty is really anglicised version of Alma Ata in Kazakh
JackintheBox
+2
Level 82
Nov 18, 2022
And now Astana has be re-renamed the name of the city!
giommaso
+19
Level 76
Aug 20, 2019
Many of these places didn't really "change name", it's just that the English native speakers decided to spell it according to another transliteration or language: the Turks always called "Smyrna" "Izmir", just the English stopped calling it in Greek. The Polish always called "Danzig" "Gdansk", just the English stopped calling it in German.
WoodyJohnson
+5
Level 63
Aug 20, 2019
Yes it's true. That's the same name in other languages. Poles since always has been calling the city Gdansk and Germans are still calling Danzig, Breslau, Stettin etc. Polish people also has their own names of german city like Chociebuz for Cottbus, Norymberga for Nuremberg or Moguncja for Mainz.
Aloha19
+1
Level 51
Aug 20, 2019
I second that.
JonOfKent
+1
Level 60
Jan 6, 2021
I even have a quiz about that...
tshalla
+4
Level 78
Apr 6, 2022
Beijing is just applying pinyin transliteration.
TheWelshManc
+1
Level 45
Aug 20, 2019
You should accept Ho Chi Minh as an answer for Ho Chi Minh City, didn't think I had to do the full name and then thought I was just wrong.
Lilylee
+3
Level 78
Aug 20, 2019
Even "Ho Chi Min" without the last "h" works, so it works without "city" as well.
BaliVibing
+4
Level 80
Oct 20, 2020
Just type HCMC
SHARK
+1
Level 56
Aug 21, 2019
Nice quiz! I have made a similar quiz with the country given as a hint Click here
Hollywood
+6
Level 61
Nov 27, 2019
The old names were better. Was it really necessary to change them?
Findlay
+6
Level 81
Feb 21, 2020
That's a bit of a blanket statement. Personally I think Beijing and Mumbai sound much better than Peking and Bombay. Many have not really changed their names, it's just that we in English have taken to using the local name rather than an old colonial name or some anglicisation. Canton was never the name for that city. Of course some changed because of the connotations of the name - Stalingrad's, for example, aren't great. On the other hand Vietnam's new communist government wanted to honour their founder and so renamed the largest city.
bittern
+1
Level 44
Dec 15, 2023
I was reading that the way I think (we) Brits and Yanks say Mumbai is completely off. And that Mumbai is one of the local languages and not really preferred by the new city dwellers who are from a broader reason. It's all a sticky web, as it should be.
JonOfKent
+2
Level 60
Jul 4, 2025
To be fair, it's never been called "Guangdong" either - the way English speakers tend to pronounce it. It's just a case of swapping one transliteration for another.
carlonian
+2
Level 72
Mar 8, 2020
typed Kalilingrad. *facepalm*
JohnnyYeet
+1
Level 64
Jan 9, 2021
Lemberg and Lviv, maybe?
PenguinTorpedo
+3
Level 49
Apr 4, 2021
I still call it Saigon :)
Vevangui
+1
Level 45
Jul 4, 2025
Me too. We don't speak Vietnamese, so it's fair.
YantheMan
+7
Level 66
Apr 6, 2022
You know, after everything else he did, there's something so unbearably, insufferably smug about Leopold II naming the capital of the country he destroyed after himself. Just one more slap in the face.
AlmostAGenius
+2
Level 88
Apr 6, 2022
I got stuck for so long thinking “Oh yeah, there’s a city in Illinois called Batavia”.
GrammarBeane1
+4
Level 83
Apr 6, 2022
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Tenochtitlan different than Mexico City? They built Mexico City in the same spot on the ruins of Tenochtitlan, but that's different than just renaming the city, which is what most of these are
jojo8
+2
Level 65
Mar 24, 2023
You could argue that Kaliningrad was built on the ruins of Konigsberg to be fair.
ShievaAndGolly
+1
Level 59
Apr 21, 2022
Moscow's old name was Moskva if you want to add any more.
njtedeschi
+1
Level 65
Dec 14, 2023
Those are just the modern English and Russian names. Although, in a way, Moscow is sort of the older name. Moscow historically comes from the Old East Slavic word Московь (along with words like Muscovy and Muscovite). A few centuries later in the evolution of Russian, the second o dropped out and the word took on the modern Russian spelling Москва/Moskva.
CotCat
+1
Level 67
Sep 25, 2023
Danzig and Gdańsk are the same names, just in other languages.
QayseriRum
+1
Level 65
Nov 11, 2023
I looked at Londinium, thought "That can't be London, that would be too obvious". Spent a minute or two guessing cities that used to be part of the British Empire. I give up, see the answer. *Sigh*.
pikafrenzy
+2
Level 56
Dec 14, 2023
I typed Petrograd for Leningrad and it was allowed for some reason lol, feels wrong. Should probably be removed given it says "current name"
SpartanLlama
+1
Level 77
Nov 29, 2024
Just missed Oslo
Bonifratz
+1
Level 49
Mar 11, 2025
20/20 in 2:45 minutes on the first try, very proud of that!
1randomexpert
+1
Level 28
Mar 27, 2025
I typed St. Petersburg and Volvograd and it didn`t work
CurtisNewton
+1
Level 59
Jul 4, 2025
Scaniagrad, Saabgrad? Some sort of Swedish carmaker.
Haobo
+1
Level 49
Jul 4, 2025
Peking should't be included because Peking and Beijing refer to the same chinese characters. Only the roman spellings changed.
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