Eastern African Place Names

Eastern African names include those from Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. See also about African names.

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Buganda (Region & Political Subdivision) Eastern African, Ganda
The name of a region within Uganda and also the root of the country's name (see Uganda).

Ityoppya (Country) Eastern African, Amharic
Amharic form of Ethiopia.

Kenya (Country & Mountain) English, Eastern African, Kikuyu, Swahili, French, Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Romanian, Greek, Turkish
The country is named for Mount Kenya, which in the Kikuyu language is called Kĩrĩnyaga meaning "the one having stripes".

Kĩrĩnyaga (Mountain) Eastern African, Kikuyu
Kikuyu form of Kenya (the mountain).

Komori (Country) Eastern African, Comorian, Slovene, Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, Macedonian
Comorian form of Comoros, as well as the form in several other languages.

Malawi (Country) Southern African, Chewa, Eastern African, English, Swahili, French, Italian, Portuguese, Catalan, German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Estonian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Romanian, Turkmen, Arabic
Possibly from Chewa malawi meaning "flame, fire". This is the name of a landlocked country in southern Africa. It was renamed from Nyasaland when the country gained independence from Britain in 1964. Hastings Banda, the country's first president and the man who chose the name, claimed to have seen it on an old map in the form Maravi, referring to a lake.

Msumbiji (Island & Country) Eastern African, Swahili
Swahili form of Mozambique.

Nairobi (Settlement) English, Eastern African, Swahili, Kikuyu, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Hungarian, Romanian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Slovene, Turkish, Japanese, Korean
From Maasai enkare nyrobi meaning "cold water", referencing a nearby river. This is the name of the capital city of Kenya. It was founded in 1899 by the British colonial authorities.

Namibia (Country) English, German, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Polish, Italian, Spanish, Romanian, Albanian, Georgian, Armenian, Eastern African, Swahili, Indonesian, Malay, Japanese, Korean
From the name of the Namib Desert, meaning "desert, vast place" in Khoekhoe. This is a country in southwestern Africa.

Rwanda (Country) Eastern African, Rwandan, English, French, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Swahili
Of Kinyarwanda origin, of uncertain meaning. This is the name of a small landlocked country in central Africa.

Soomaaliya (Country) Eastern African, Somali
Somali form of Somalia.

Tanganyika (Region & Country) Eastern African, Swahili, English
From Swahili tanga "sail" and nyika "wilderness". This is the name of a region in eastern Africa. It was a German then British colony until 1961 when it gained independence. In 1964 it united with the island of Zanzibar to create the new country of Tanzania.

Tanzania (Country) Eastern African, Swahili, English, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Polish, Romanian, Greek, Armenian, Georgian, Indonesian, Malay
From a combination of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, the names of the two countries that were united to create the eastern African country of Tanzania in 1964.

Uganda (Country) English, Eastern African, Ganda, Swahili, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Romanian, Russian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Slovene, Croatian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Turkish, Georgian, Armenian, Hebrew, Persian, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Malay
From Buganda, the name of a kingdom within Uganda, which means "land of the Ganda" in the Luganda language. The Ganda are an ethnic group, their name possibly deriving from a Bantu word meaning "family". Uganda is a landlocked country in eastern Africa.

Yuganda (Country) Eastern African, Ganda
Luganda variant form of Uganda.

Zanzibar (Island) Eastern African, Swahili, English
From Arabic زنجبار (Zanjibar), from Persian زنگبار (Zangibar), derived from زنگی (zangi) meaning "black, dark-skinned" and بار (bar) meaning "shore, coast". This is the name of an island, part of Tanzania.

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