Can you name the countries below from their names in their own languages?

Local name (endonym)	English name (exonym)
Al-’Urdun
Al-Jazā'ir
Al-Maghrib
Bălgarija
België / Belgique
Bharot / Bhārat / Hindustān
Česká republika / Česko
Chosŏn
Crna Gora
Deutschland
Dhivehi Raajje
Druk Yul
Eesti
Éire
España
Hanguk
Hayastán
Hellas / Ellada
Hrvatska
iNingizimu Afrika / Afrika Borwa
Ityop'ia

Local name (endonym)	English name (exonym)
Ködörösêse tî Bêafrîka
Lietuva
Lubnān
Magyarország
Maurice
Mişr / Maşr
Nippon / Nihon
Norge
Österreich
Polska
Rossiya
Sak'art'velo
Schweiz/Suisse/Svizzera/Svizra
Shqipëria
Slovensko
Srbija
Suomi
Sverige
Tshād
Zhōngguó
France

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There are 135 comments for this game.
(Warning: comments may contain spoilers)

Exonymous Countries Quiz

by davidr

Created Mar 16, 2009 in Geography
Featured Mar 16, 2009
Game Plays 129,540

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	Tim_Allen:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 18:28 GMT		40 points
	What a surprise...not a single North American country to be found. Just kidding. This was actually a fun quiz, Davidr. Nice job.

	BentKangaroo:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 18:31 GMT		51 points
	I really think you should have to match the country to the language. Having them be guessed in any order just leads to randomly guessing countries after a while, which isn't what this quiz is supposed to test. I knew about ten of them for sure, and then just went crazy. (and I can't believe I missed Ireland)

	hoosfoos:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 18:33 GMT		66 points
	I thought the 5th one down on the right was Steve Miller.

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	Nuclear_Knuckles:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 18:38 GMT		25 points
	I never understand why we change the names of other countries. Some probably have sounds which don't really exist in English, so I guess it makes sense to recast it in a form which approximates the real name but can be said by English speakers. But a lot of these changed names don't approximate the real names in any way. And some don't need to be changed at all (why Germany when we could easily write or say Deutschland?) A name is a name; I don't think it should be translated.

	Nuclear_Knuckles:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 18:39 GMT		14 points
	And I agree it becomes a "name any country" quiz after a bit. Perhaps this should be formatted so it goes through the choices one by one, so you can't just guess anything and watch it show up in a random box.

	Booger:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 18:40 GMT		33 points
	@ Nuclear Knuckles: I've thought about that too. I'm sure all the Magyarországs agree with you.

	Cuthbert_Twilley:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 18:44 GMT		17 points
	@NK: Germany has a lot of different names in different languages. English speakers have been calling it Germany for a very, very long time and the community of English speaking nations seems to see to reason to change it. I've had a lot of German friends and they don't seem care much. I expect it's the same for most countries, except for the ones whose English name sounds like a swear word in their native language.

	oldmanscene24:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 18:44 GMT		20 points
	I'm not sure why, but I typed in France for a lark and got a bonus answer!

	lulubelles:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 18:44 GMT		20 points
	isn't it strange how lietuva becomes lithuania in english, when it sounds so much more like latvia, same with slovensko, sounds more like slovakia. wonderful quiz davidr

	Cuthbert_Twilley:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 18:45 GMT		6 points
	davidr: I like the one bonus I got, BTW. Any others I should look for beside the oenophiles?

	cmkeller:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 18:50 GMT		24 points
	I totally expected "Maurice" to be "the Pompatus of Love".

	orzechowskid:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 19:03 GMT		0 points
	I got maybe half of them by looking at their native names, then maybe another eight or nine by randomly guessing until time ran out. Fun quiz, thanks!

	Tired of Davidr:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 19:26 GMT		18 points
	Funny, I thought Slovensko sounded more like Slovenia...

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	pete:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 19:31 GMT		21 points
	Nuclear - it's not so much that names shouldn't be translated, the real call is whose name. My people have a name for THIS PLACE where we live, and we have a name for THAT PLACE where the other people live, and what's wrong with using our names for those places. The names will probably be more meaningful to us than the native's names. South Korea /North Korea is a more useful name to an English speaker than Hanguk/Choson. Montenegro is probably more recognizable to westerners than Crna Gora even though they both translate as Black Mountain. Anyway. Just my 2 cents.

	Cuthbert_Twilley:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 19:36 GMT		5 points
	It's a good list, but I'm sure residents of Ratcha-anachak Thai and Al-’Imārat feel left out. Civitas Vaticana would be good too. It's no more obvious than Bălgarija.

	chambers:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 19:40 GMT		1 point
	34 this one was great.

	Flash:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 19:42 GMT		3 points
	Great quiz davidr! I got 32/41 plus the bonus and was kicking myself once the time was up and I saw which ones I missed...after seeing the answer it seemed so obvious with some of them!

	GeordieGuitarist:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 20:02 GMT		1 point
	France is a bonus answer! Missed Jordan, The Maldives and Ethiopia.

	Rom:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 20:11 GMT		10 points
	I knew what Crna Gora meant (black mountain) because of Russian, but I didn't think of Montenegro.

	peanut4:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 20:11 GMT		1 point
	Time is a bit too long. I got to 30 and simply started guessing countries with plenty of time left. Not that I got any more, but with a bit better guessing, I could easily have had the extra ten or so.

	weizenugb:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 20:12 GMT		9 points
	@Nuclear Knuckles: It's not like one day an English speaker took out a map and said "OK, I'm going to give every one of these countries a random name that is completely different than the native name!" Different groups of people from around the world come into contact with other groups under a wide variety of circumstances. In the past, meetings were often informal, with one side not speaking the language of the other and venturing their best guess as to what to call them. Over time it just sticks. One reason why Germany has so many different names is because for a long time it wasn't united like today. I might be wrong, but I think the word Germany derives from the Roman province of Germania, or something like that.

	Rachel:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 20:22 GMT		2 points
	Strange that South Korea's is "hanguk" - that's a colloquial way Koreans refer to their nation, but the official name of the country is "daehan minguk". It's like if an endonym referring to the U.S. was "America".

	Nuclear_Knuckles:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 20:23 GMT		2 points
	Well I didn't think the names were randomly chosen, and I'm sure there are reasons for them. Those reasons are not necessarily obvious to me. I guess it does make more sense if you consider that some of those names were chosen long ago, before communication or travel between different nations was common or convenient. I guess it's just one of those things which I've always wondered about but never had quite enough interest to bother looking into further.

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	Rzeziol:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 20:37 GMT		6 points
	28/41. Would got more if just started typing random countries, but I don't think this is the point of this quiz. Hrvastka jako mi se svoja

	davidr:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 20:42 GMT		1 point
	@Rachel: The CIA World Factbook gives "Han'guk" as the conventional short form. Perhaps a better analogue is that Americans often call their country "the US" when, officially, the name of the country is "the United States of America".

	davidr:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 20:46 GMT		5 points
	@Cuthbert T.: I thought "Ratcha-anachak Thai" was a bit of a give-away and I wanted to have a mix of fairly easy ones (Bulgaria), ones you can get if you think about it (Maurice) and ones that you just have to guess or know (Albania). The UAE would have been a good inclusion, though. And I was quite tempted by Al Jamahiriyah al Arabiyah al Libiyah ash Shabiyah al Ishtirakiyah al Uthma (Libya) but it would have screwed up the formatting. ;-)

	Kitnaz:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 20:51 GMT		0 points
	another great quiz from Davidr! definately room for a sequel, keep up the good quizzes! although i agree with the guy that said that we should all use countries proper names, but if i hadn't guessed a few, i would never have got Zhongguo! :D I typed Egypt and it didn't come up though?...

	fishmonkey:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 21:04 GMT		7 points
	Another great quiz Davidr. I very luckily have an atlas, which I sadly while away my time with, that lists countries in their native tongues - so i knew most (though not all) through osmosis : )

	zigra:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 21:05 GMT		7 points
	This quiz is all kinds of awesome. I have kind of a crush on davidr :D

	Cuthbert_Twilley:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 21:15 GMT		2 points
	@davidr: There weren't many that you left off, outside of the really obvious ones, that's why I was surprised to see Bulgaria but not, say, Latvia. And really, with other Baltic states already there, don't you think the Lats deserve a little love?

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	davidr:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 21:26 GMT		5 points
	@fishmonkey: I know what you mean: I can sit looking at maps and Google Earth for ages.

	davidr:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 21:30 GMT		1 point
	@zigra: blush You do realise I don't look much like my avatar, right?

	davidr:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 21:36 GMT		1 point
	@sally2: Only seven out of 41 countries here have Baltic coastlines and two of the three countries usually referred to as "Baltic states" are included. I put France as a bonus in the hope that it might amuse people when they found it.

	chikka2:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 21:46 GMT		1 point
	Always challenging and fun as usual,Davidr; what about a sequel?

	davidr:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 21:47 GMT		2 points
	@Cuthbert T.: Sure, the list is pretty arbitrary. But I think "Latvija" is even more obvious than "Bălgarija" and people are doing pretty well on this quiz without adding more really easy ones.

	SillyStokey92:	Mar 16th, 2009 at 21:48 GMT		5 points
	31. Good quiz. I like the bonus.