Lost in translation: 12 historic city names that vanished from maps

Many well-known cities have not always been called by their modern names. Medieval maps and documents often reflect older forms shaped by language, imperialism, and administrative change. This article presents 12 cities whose historical names differ from the ones used today, reflecting how urban identity can evolve over time.

European merchants from the 1500s onward commonly referred to this major southern Chinese port as Canton, a name that developed from the Portuguese pronunciation of Guangdong, the surrounding province. In contrast, medieval Chinese records and administrative documents consistently used Guangzhou to identify the city itself.

As foreign trade increased in later centuries, Canton remained the dominant term in Western maps and reports. During the 20th century, the Chinese government standardized Guangzhou as the official form, and international publications gradually adopted the modern name in line with updated geographic and linguistic guidelines.

On medieval maps, this Baltic port appears as Reval, a name associated with the surrounding region of Revala and used widely in German and Swedish documents. The local Estonian name Tallinn, often interpreted as meaning "Danish town," existed alongside Reval for many centuries but did not appear frequently in international references. After Estonia gained independence in 1918, the new government adopted Tallinn as the official name for state administration, mapping, and foreign correspondence, gradually phasing out the historical form Reval from everyday use.

In the 17th century, European traders adopted the name Bombay, derived from the earlier Portuguese form Bombaim, which was coined after Portugal arrived in the region. Medieval local settlements, however, used names connected to the goddess Mumbā Devī, and these forms gradually developed into Mumbai in regional languages.

The name Bombay remained common in English during the colonial period and well into the 20th century. In 1995, the Indian government formally adopted Mumbai as part of a broader effort to restore historical and regional place names and align official usage with long-established local terminology.

We now know it as Bratislava, but in medieval German and Central European sources, the capital of Slovakia appeared as Pressburg, a name widely used in administrative records and regional maps. Hungarian documents used Pozsony, while Slovak-speaking communities used earlier forms that later developed into Bratislava.

After the creation of Czechoslovakia in 1918, the new government selected Bratislava as the official name. This decision aligned the city’s identity with the Slovak language and standardized its use in state administration, cartography, and international communication.

English-language maps from the medieval and early modern periods often used the name Leghorn to refer to this port city on the west coast of Tuscany. This form, an anglicized version of the Italian Livorno, appeared in trade documents, port registries, and maritime charts produced in Britain and other Western European countries.

Within Italy, however, the name Livorno remained standard in official records and everyday use. As English cartographic practices modernized in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Leghorn was progressively replaced in atlases, government publications, and international references, leaving Livorno as the fully standardized name.

In 1930, the Republic of Turkey officially adopted the name Istanbul as part of nationwide language reforms that aimed to standardize geographic names. Yet, during the Middle Ages, European and Byzantine documents consistently used Constantinople, a name introduced in 330 CE when Emperor Constantine refounded the city as the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire.

The form Istanbul existed in local speech for many centuries, especially in Ottoman Turkish administrative and everyday use, but it remained secondary outside the region. It did not replace Constantinople in international publications, maps, and diplomatic records until the early 20th century, when the Turkish government applied the modern spelling in official communications.

Medieval Latin sources refer to this antique city spanning the Rhine River in western Germany as Colonia Agrippina, a designation used in administrative records and church documents. Over time, this Latin name shifted into Cologne in French and later in English.

Within the German-speaking world, however, Köln is the official name employed in government and municipal contexts. Cologne continues to be used internationally in English-language publications, reflecting the city’s long linguistic connection to its earlier Latin and French forms.

During Venetian rule, from the 13th to the 17th century, both the city and, at times, the entire island of Crete were commonly referred to as Candia in European maps, trade documents, and diplomatic correspondence. Local Greek populations, however, continued to use Heraklion (or Iraklio) in everyday speech and regional records. After Crete unified with the Kingdom of Greece in 1913, the Greek government adopted Heraklion as the official name. This change gradually replaced Candia in administrative documents, cartography, and international references.

European travelers adopted the name Peking based on older pronunciations of the city’s name that circulated in foreign accounts during the Yuan dynasty. These forms entered Western languages through early maps, missionary writings, and trade records.

Within China, however, the Ming dynasty formally established Beijing, meaning "Northern Capital", as the administrative name in 1403. The term remained through later dynasties and into the modern period. In the 20th century, the Chinese government standardized Beijing for international use, and over time, it replaced Peking in official English-language publications, atlases, and diplomatic documents.

To refer to the capital of Georgia, European and Russian documents from the medieval period through the 19th century commonly used Tiflis, a form that entered widespread use through administrative records, maps, and travel writing. Yet, the Georgian name Tbilisi existed throughout this time as the local designation.

In 1936, during a series of Soviet administrative and linguistic reforms, authorities formally adopted Tbilisi as the standardized name. After this change, Tiflis was gradually removed from official documents.

Founded as Edo in the medieval period, this ancient city grew from a fortified settlement into a major urban center under the Tokugawa shogunate beginning in the early 1600s. During this time, Edo became the seat of the shogun and developed one of the largest populations in the world.

When the Meiji Restoration transferred imperial authority to Edo in 1868, the new government renamed the city Tokyo, meaning "Eastern Capital." This decision recognized its new status as the national capital and marked the beginning of its role as the administrative and political center of modern Japan.

After a major fire in 1624, the capital of Norway, originally called Oslo, was rebuilt under King Christian IV and renamed Christiania as part of the reconstruction effort. The earlier name continued to appear in local usage and historical references during the following centuries. In 1925, however, the Norwegian government formally reinstated Oslo as the official name, restoring the designation used before the medieval period and aligning administrative records with long-standing local tradition.

Translation and interpretation

Was the forbidden fruit really an apple? 10 Bible surprises

What if some of the Bible stories you grew up with aren't exactly what the Bible says? Was the forbidden fruit really an apple? Were there actually three Wise Men? Did "God helps those who help themselves" really come from the Bible? Over centuries, translations, traditions, and famous works of art have added details that became so familiar, we stopped questioning them. But go back to the texts, and some of these stories look surprisingly different. From Eve's "apple" to the date of Jesus' birth, here are 10 familiar parts of the Bible that may not be quite what we remember.

When you picture the Garden of Eden, what fruit comes to mind? Most people imagine an apple, but there's just one problem: the Bible never says it was an apple.

In the Book of Genesis, the fruit is simply called "the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." The original Hebrew text uses the word peri, which simply means "fruit." The apple connection came centuries later, largely through the Latin translation. The Latin word malum can mean both "apple" and "evil," making it an especially fitting symbol for the story. Over time, that association spread through Christian art and literature. Famous works such as Albrecht Dürer’s 1504 engraving Adam and Eve (also known as The Fall of Man) helped cement the image of Eve holding an apple. Today, it's one of the most famous scenes in history, even though the original biblical text doesn’t identify the fruit as an apple at all.

The story of Jesus' birth is so famous that most of us picture the Three Wise Men, sometimes called the Three Kings, standing beside the manger. But the thing is, over the centuries, the story picked up a few details that aren't actually in the Bible.

In the Gospel of Matthew, the only Gospel that mentions these visitors, they are described simply as Magi from the East. The original Greek word, magoi, referred to learned scholars, astrologers, or priests from Persia or Babylon, not kings. But where did the number three come from? Matthew lists three gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh, but never says how many visitors brought them. Over the centuries, people naturally assumed there must have been three Magi, one for each gift. Even their familiar names, Melchior, Caspar, and Balthasar, were added later by Christian tradition. So, neither the number of visitors nor their names appears anywhere in the biblical text.

Whether it's used to motivate a friend, encourage a family member, or push yourself to finally make a difficult decision, "God helps those who help themselves" is one of the most familiar religious sayings in America. But here's the surprise: those words never appear in the Bible.

The idea can be traced to ancient Greek sources, including Aesop’s Fables, where the saying appears in an earlier form: "The gods help them that help themselves." The exact modern wording was written by English politician Algernon Sidney in 1698, but it was Benjamin Franklin who helped make it part of American culture when he included it in his 1736 edition of Poor Richard’s Almanack.

Many teenagers have heard "Cleanliness is next to godliness" when it was time to clean their rooms. But despite sounding like a Bible verse, the phrase never appears in Scripture.

The Bible, particularly Leviticus, does contain extensive laws requiring people to wash their bodies and clothes in certain circumstances, especially before religious rituals. But the famous saying itself came much later. In 1605, Francis Bacon wrote in The Advancement of Learning that "cleanness of body" was connected to reverence for God. Then, in 1786, it was Methodist leader John Wesley who used the wording we recognize today in a sermon: "Cleanliness is indeed next to Godliness." Over time, the phrase became a familiar saying that many people simply assumed came from the Bible.

When it comes to famous dates, December 25 may be the most recognizable of all, universally associated with Christmas. But here's the surprising part: the Bible never gives any specific date for Jesus' birth.

The Gospels of Matthew and Luke describe the Nativity but never provide a calendar date, so how did December 25 become Christmas? There are two leading theories. The first is that the Roman Church was celebrating Christmas on December 25 by 336 AD, during Constantine's reign, possibly choosing the date to coincide with existing Roman winter festivals and make it easier to convert the empire to Christianity. The second points to an early Christian tradition that calculated Jesus' birth date from the supposed date of his crucifixion, eventually arriving at December 25.

The story of Jonah and the Whale is so famous that it has appeared literally or symbolically in innumerable works of art and literature, from Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling (1508-1512) to Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick. But there's a small problem with the title we've given it: the Bible doesn’t actually say it was a whale.

In the Old Testament, the original Hebrew text of Jonah 1:17 uses the words dag gadol, meaning "great fish" or "large fish"; it doesn't identify the creature as a whale, or even specify what kind of fish it was. Most modern English translations therefore stick with "great fish," but the familiar "whale" interpretation developed through older translations and later European tradition, eventually becoming so widespread that "Jonah and the Whale" became the name almost everyone recognizes.

Just as we've always pictured the forbidden fruit as an apple, many of us also assume the serpent in the Garden of Eden is the devil himself. But the original story is a little more complicated.

A plain reading of Genesis depicts the creature simply as a serpent or snake, using the Hebrew word nachash. It describes the serpent as clever and crafty, but it never calls it Satan or explicitly identifies it as the devil. So where did the connection come from? The answer comes from later parts of the Bible, particularly the New Testament. In Revelation 12:9 and 20:2, Satan is called "the ancient serpent" (ho ophis ho archaios in Greek), connecting him to the snake of Eden. Over time, Christian tradition applied that later connection back to Genesis, leading to the familiar belief that the serpent was Satan himself.

Many of us remember Samson for his legendary strength and the long hair that was said to be the source of his power. His story with Delilah is one of the Bible's most famous tales of betrayal, but there's one detail some people may have gotten wrong: Delilah didn't actually cut his long hair.

In Judges 16:19, Delilah has Samson's hair shaved while he sleeps on her lap. The text says she called for a man to do the shaving; it never says she did it herself. Yet paintings, films, and other retellings have often shown Delilah wielding the scissors herself, cementing that image in popular culture. It can be considered a small detail, but it’s a great example of how easily familiar Bible stories can pick up elements that aren't actually in the original text.

Many of us think of the Bible as a single book, written at one particular time by one author, or perhaps a handful of them. After all, that's how it looks when you pick one up in a hotel room, but its history is far more complicated.

The Bible is actually a collection of books written by over 40 authors over roughly 1,500 years, from about 1400 BC to AD 100. The exact number of books varies by religious tradition: Protestant Bibles contain 66 books, while Catholic and Orthodox traditions include additional books. Across these different traditions, the writings were produced by kings, prophets, fishermen, and scholars in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. They also span a tremendous range of literary styles, including history, poetry, songs, laws, letters, and prophecy. So while we hold it as one book today, the Bible is actually a collection of many different writings produced across centuries.

Many people assume that at least a few original fragments of the Bible must still exist somewhere. It would be incredible if they did, but none of the original manuscripts, known as autographs, have survived.

The earliest biblical texts were written on fragile materials such as papyrus and animal skins, which could deteriorate through humidity, heat, handling, and simple age. Wars, fires, and other destruction also contributed to their disappearance. So how do we know what the originals said? Through a technique called textual criticism: expert scholars compare thousands of handwritten copies, ancient translations, and quotations from early Christian writers. When they find passages that match across different sources, or differences that reveal how a text changed over time, they can work backward to determine what the original most likely said, even though the original manuscripts themselves are gone.