Founded as Byzantium in the 600s BCE, when Constantine I (the Great) moved the imperial Roman capital East he renamed it, briefly Nova Roma, then Constantinopolis after himself. After the Ottoman conquest of 1453 this name was Arabicised as Konstantiniyye. However, since at least the 10th century it has been known informally as Stamboul or Istanbul, from a Greek phrase meaning ‘in the city’, and in 1930s the newly-formed Republic of Turkey officially changed the city’s name to Istanbul.
Many cities have changed their names over the years, to reflecting changing ownership, favoured or disfavoured ideologies and people, or to replace colonial names with local ones. Just a handful from Russia include: Saint Petersburg becoming Petrograd in 1914, Leningrad in 1924, and back to St Petersburg in 1991; Yagoshikha becoming Perm in 1781, Molotov in 1940, and back to Perm in 1957; Yekaterinburg becoming Sverdlovsk in 1924 before reverting in 1991; and Tsaritsyn became Stalingrad in 1925 and then Volgograd as part of Krushchev’s 1960s de-Stalinisation efforts.
Other examples abound - from India, Chennai (Madras), Vijayapura (Bijapur) and Prayagraj (Allahabad); from China, Guangdong (Canton), Chongqing (Chungking) and Ürümqi (Dihua); and from Kazakhstan the capital Nur-Sultan has been Astana, Akmola, Tselinograd and Akmolinsk all in the last 60 years.
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