How Each Asian Capital Got Its Name

So how many of these capital names did I mispronounce?

Just to be clear, Thai people don't call the capital city "Bangkok" anymore. The full name of our capital city is "Krungthepmahanakhon Amonrattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilokphop Noppharatratchathaniburirom Udomratchaniwetmahasathan Amonphimanawatansathit Sakkathattiyawitsanukamprasit" but we just call it "Krung Theb Maha Nakhon" which means "The big city of gods(Hindu's gods)"

Peter the Great is the founder of St. Petersburg but its name is actually referred to St. Peter (apostle).

Just a side note as someone who’s from Thailand, the only people refer to Thailand capital as Bangkok are people outside of Thailand, the Thai people calls it’s Krung Thep, Krung is old language meaning city while Thep means holy deity, so the name means something along the lines of city of deity or the city of angels.

There is a possible legend that explains the name "Thimphu", and that is that is that according to the travels of one man in the 1300's, Jamyan Kuengasenge, there was a local deity, who dissolved before his eyes and became a part of the rock he was stood on. "Thim" meaning "dissolve" and preceding "phu" meaning high ground. so "Dissolve High Ground". Not sure how true it is, but it's the only explanation I have ever found.

Tokyo = Eastern Capital Beijing = Northern Capital Nanjing = Southern Capital Where is the Western Capital!?

So satisfying to have a channel where when you cannot find information you ask for help and don’t ignore it, you seek it out. A sponge for knowledge! Keep it up, I love your videos.

5:33 The ancient Malays understood that the wind that blew from Asia to Australia from October to April was called the Bharat wind, while the opposite direction was called the Timur wind. And yap, Timur is actually the name of the wind that blows in April-October from Australia to Asia. Note : the word "Timog" form Tagalog means south because the wind blows from the south. I'm not good at English, so I'm using google translate for this

4:36 I think you accidentally mentioned that Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien III was the previous sultan of Bhutan. I believe you meant Brunei instead 😂

It's interesting how most of these names came out of India, Persia and Greece tells so much about the influence and reach of these lands had back then in history.

Literal meaning of most South and southeast Asian countries tells a lot about how much their history and culture influenced by Bharat and Sanskrit in ancient times(not using word India, Bharat instead as India not used to exists back then but Bharat did)

As a Hong Konger, the name "Hong Kong" means fragrant harbor in our Cantonese language which is an established name for this place 200 years before the arrival of the British. Even the British decided to refer our city as Hong Kong and never victoria, so the section about Hong Kong is inaccurate.

16:08 As a Filipino this is wrong. The term May-nilá comes from the Spanish, the actual Tagalog(the group of people that lives in the region) term is May nilad. Nilad is the name of the plant, not the color indigo(I don't know where you got that, but Nilad is a shrub with very distinct flowers). May nilad translates to "has nilad" referring to the place having nilad plants, because precolonial tagalogs knew the place by the abundance of the nilad plant there.

Tajik is just a variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by Tajiks, so Dushanbe's name comes from Persian/Farsi.

Ankara: Meaning "anchor" Also Ankara: Nowhere near a body of water. In fact, it's a common Turkish joke to say "Did your ships sink in Ankara?" (a variation of ("Did your ships sink in the Black Sea?", meaning "did something happen") or "A ship has sunken in Ankara."

"Countries have capitals, and capitals have names" - Knowledge, General, 2022

14:25 The Singapore name comes from Old Malay which itself is heavily influenced by Sanskrit. In India we have thousands of Cities and Villages ending with pore. Singa also means Lion in Sanskrit and Hindi.

I really like how your editing has improved over the years. You've been putting a lot of effort into presentation lately and it shows. Great job man.

Here is a thing about "Dhaka" 's name. It's based on the name of the greater region that it is in. Imagine if instead Baviaria's capital being called Munich/München it was called as "Bavaria". The actual name for the area "Dhaka" is due to the "Dhakeshvari" temple which was once a pilgrimage site. The city got it's name of Dhaka after the Mughal were kicked out of Bengal, renaming the city from "Jahangir Nagar" city named after Emperor Mughal Jahangir to "Dhaka". All other explanations are likely rooted in the time when Bangal was part of Pakistan where an attempt severing all non-islamic roots was taking place. Not saying that they aren't accurate but highly likely that is the case.

Hanoi's medieval name is even cooler. Hanoi was called "Thang Long" for over 600 years, and it means "Ascending dragon".