What Place Names Mean

Accordion City’s other name, Toronto, is a native word for “meeting place”. Chicago is supposed to mean “stink onion”, in reference to the marshland onions that grew there well before the “El” and Wrigley Field. The Atlas of True Names presents the world with its place names translated into their meaning, turning the Sahara into the Sea of Sand, Paris into the City of Boatmen, Hong Kong into Fragrant Harbour, Grozny into “The Awesome” and Great Britain into Great Land of the Tattooed.

I’ve posted a collage of maps from the Atlas of True Names below. Click on them to see them at full size: