Japanese Place Names

CHŪGOKU 中国 (Country & Region) Japanese
Japanese form of ZHONGGUO, used to refer to China. It is also the name of a region in western Japan.

CHUUGOKU 中国 (Country & Region) Japanese
Alternate transcription of Japanese Kanji 中国 (see CHŪGOKU).

FIRIPIN フィリピン (Country) Japanese
Japanese form of PHILIPPINES.

HASE 長谷 (Settlement) Japanese
Etymologically from Japanese 泊 (hatsu) meaning "anchorage​" and 瀬 (se) meaning "shallows". The spelling of 長谷 is from a shortening of 長谷 の 泊瀬 (nagatani no hatsuse) meaning "long valley of Hatsuse". This is the name of a place in Sakurai, Japan.

HOTAKA 穂高 (Mountain) Japanese
From Japanese 穂 (ho) meaning "grain" and 高 (taka) meaning "tall". This is the name of a mountain in Japan.

INDO インド, 印度 (Country) Japanese, Korean
Japanese and Korean form of INDIA. It is usually written in katakana in Japan and Hangul in Korea.

IRAN イラン (Country) Persian, Arabic, English, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Romanian, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Slovene, Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Greek, Indonesian, Malay, Japanese, Korean
Derived from Middle Persian Eran, related to Old Iranian Arya meaning "Iranian, Aryan". This is the name of a country in western Asia, formerly called Persia in the West.

KANTŌ 関東 (Region) Japanese
Means "eastern frontier", from Japanese 関 (kan) meaning "frontier" and 東 (tō) meaning "east". This is the name of a region in central Japan, including Tokyo.

KANTOU 関東 (Region) Japanese
Alternate transcription of Japanese Kanji 関東 (see KANTŌ).

KŌBE 神戸 (Settlement) Japanese
Possibly means "shrine supporters", in reference to the families who tended the local Ikuta Shrine. This is the name of a city in Japan.

KOBE 神戸 (Settlement) Japanese
Alternate transcription of Japanese Kanji 神戸 (see KŌBE).

KOUBE 神戸 (Settlement) Japanese
Alternate transcription of Japanese Kanji 神戸 (see KŌBE).

MŌKO 蒙古 (Country, Political Subdivision & Region) Japanese
Japanese form of MONGOLIA.

MOUKO 蒙古 (Country, Political Subdivision & Region) Japanese
Alternate transcription of Japanese Kanji 蒙古 (see MŌKO).

NIHON 日本 (Country) Japanese
Alternate reading of NIPPON.

NIPPON 日本 (Country) Japanese
Means "origin of the sun, sunrise", from Sino-Japanese 日 (nichi) meaning "sun" and 本 (hon) meaning "root, origin". This is the Japanese name for Japan.

PEKIN 北京 (Settlement) Japanese
Japanese form of BEIJING.

TŌKYŌ 東京 (Settlement) Japanese
Japanese form of TOKYO.

TOKYO 東京 (Settlement) Japanese, English, French
From Japanese 東 (tō) meaning "east" and 京 (kyō) meaning "capital city". This is the name of the capital of Japan.

UGANDA ウガンダ (Country) English, Eastern African, Ganda, Swahili, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Romanian, Russian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Slovene, Croatian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Turkish, Georgian, 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.

YAMATO 大和 (Country) Japanese
Possibly related to Japanese 山 (yama) meaning "mountain". This was the old name for the area around the city of Nara, though it was later applied to the entire country of Japan. Chinese scribes originally wrote this name using the character 倭 meaning "short". However, this was revised to the more favourable 和 meaning "harmony" in the 8th century. The prefixed character 大 means "great".