| @SteveGoodman18 I'm pretty sure that the island of Ceylon was renamed at the same time as the country (or, rather, the renaming of the island meant the nation was renamed). I say 'renamed', but obviously Lanka or Sri Lanka (as close approximations) are the names long given to the island in both Sinhala and Tamil. Ceylon is a British version of the Portuguese name. What are your sources? As for Formosa, I don't think that name has been used since the 1950s (again, it's a Portuguese name; the Chinese have long called it Taiwan, at least since the 19th century). |