Why did Chinese city names change?

The People’s Republic of China, upon its founding and new nationalities policy, changed the names of cities in ethnic minority regions from sometimes patronising Chinese language names to those of the native language. For example, it changed Dihua to Ürümqi and Zhenxi to Barkol.

What do they call cities in China?

Contemporary cities

City	Chinese	Province
Beijing	北京市	municipal
Chongqing	重庆市	municipal
Shanghai	上海市	municipal
Tianjin	天津市	municipal

Why do we call Beijing Peking?

“Peking” is a romanization created by 17th- and 18th-century French missionaries. In English, the city was known as Peking until after the 1979 replacement of the Wade-Giles romanisation system for written Chinese with the pinyin romanisation system.

What Does Beijing mean in Chinese?

Northern Capital
The name Beijing, which means “Northern Capital” (from the Chinese characters 北 for north and 京 for capital), was applied to the city in 1403 during the Ming dynasty to distinguish the city from Nanjing (the “Southern Capital”).

Is Guangdong the same as Canton?

Guangdong (UK: /ɡwæŋˈdʊŋ/, US: /ɡwɒŋ-/), alternately romanized as Canton Province or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The Pearl River Delta Economic Zone, a Chinese megalopolis, is a core for high technology, manufacturing and foreign trade.

What is the name of city in Japan?

Tokyo
14 largest Japanese cities:

Tokyo 23 wards	9.7 million
Yokohama	3.8 million
Osaka	2.8 million
Nagoya	2.3 million
Sapporo	2.0 million

What is the new name of Peking?

Beijing
After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the government adopted the pinyin transliteration method and used it to write proper names using the Latin alphabet. In theory, that’s when Peking became known in the west as Beijing.