Diary: The Capital Name Game

The Capital Conundrum

Knowing the capitals of countries is a game that all children play. But what happens when what you knew suddenly becomes wrong. Countries and kingdoms have disappeared from maps and great cities that mattered to the world suddenly lost importance. Several cities across the world have been renamed: London was Londinium, Paris was Lutetia and Vienna was Vindobona to the Romans. What we call New York was originally named New Amsterdam and the city of Toronto was established as York by the British. After being renamed Petrograd and then Leningrad, St. Petersburg returned to its old nomenclature in 1991. Who can forget that ‘aamchi Mumbai’ was Bombay? Ho Chi Min City was Saigon and Istanbul—called Byzantium before becoming Constantinople in 336 AD—got its name in 1930.

An Experiment that Failed

It was on December 12, 1911 that King George V decideed to shift the British India’s capital from Calcutta, now Kolkata, to Delhi, putting the city back on the world map after the fall of the Mughal Empire. Delhi was closer to the summer capital of Shimla that reminded the British officers of the cool climes of England and the ‘Scottish Highlands’. The shift was successful and the Raisina Hill came to define Delhi. An earlier experiment had fallen flat. In 1327, Muhammad-bin-Tughluq moved his capital to Deogiri, renamed Daulatabad, and ordered all his subjects to move. A large number of people died in the  950-km-long journey. The painful experience ended up enriching our vocabulary, as now all grandiose ideas that are destined to fail are called ‘Tughlaqi’.

From Dyushambe to Dushanbe

Some countries renamed their capitals. Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, was known as Dyushambe till 1929 when it was renamed Stalinabad in honour of Joseph Stalin. It got back its name in 1961. Ottawa was founded as Bytown in 1826 and renamed in 1855 and made the permanent capital of the ‘Province of Canada’ by Queen Victoria on New Year’s eve in 1857. Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, used to be called Léopoldville till 1966 and it may surprise us that it has overtaken Paris as the largest Francophone city in the world.

How US Got Its Capital

Neutral locations have determined the geographical coordinates of several capitals. Nigeria shifted its capital from Lagos to Abuja as it was seen to be a more neutral land for its many ethnic and religious groups—no one could call Abuja as ‘their land’—besides being more centrally located. After the United States got independence in 1776, the need for a federally governed capital city was felt, so that no state could exert undue influence over the country. The 1790 Residence Act of the U.S. Congress approved the creation of the national capital on the banks of the Potomac River. Named after President George Washington,  the capital city was built on land donated by the states of Maryland and Virginia.

Almaty was the capital of Kazakhs­tan when the country gained independence from the Sov­iet Union in 1991. But the city had little room to expand, was prone to earthquakes and was considered too close to the Chinese border. So, the capital was moved 1,200 km north to Astana in December 1997 and renamed Nur-Sultan in honour of the long-serving president, Nursultan Nazarbayev. Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, was created 1,100 km away from the older capital city of Rio de Janeiro as it was overcrowded and government buildings were far apart.

A New Capital for Egypt

Egypt is in the process of shifting its capital to a yet-to-be-named city about 45 km east of Cairo, to relieve the pressure on the city that is seen to be bursting at its seams. Indonesia hopes to move its capital from a traffic-choked Jakarta to the island of Borneo by 2024. Burma was renamed Myanmar in 1989. Yangon, also called Rangoon, was its capital from 1948 to 2006, when the government moved it 320 km north to Naypyidaw. The new capital is more centrally and strategically located, but it led to speculation on reasons for the change, including a warning from an astrologer about a foreign military attack. Even Pakistan decided in 1959 to move its capital from Karachi to a new location up north and called it Islamabad.

(This appeared in the print edition as "Capital Diary")

Puneet Kundal is a serving IFS office