Geography Basics

Countries That Changed Their Names: The Full History

9 min read · Published September 22, 2026

Quick answer

Dozens of countries have officially changed their names over the past century, usually to mark independence, remove colonial-era naming, or correct a name assigned by outsiders rather than chosen by the country itself. Some changes happened overnight by decree; others took decades to gain international acceptance — and at least one country has changed its name six times.

The most dramatic case: Zaire / DR Congo

No other country's naming history rivals the Democratic Republic of the Congo's. In just over a century, it has been called:

1. Congo Free State (1885) — the personal property of Belgium's King Leopold II

2. Belgian Congo (1908) — after Belgium annexed it as a formal colony

3. Republic of the Congo (1960) — upon independence, sharing its name with its neighbour across the river, which caused enough confusion that the two were distinguished as Congo-Léopoldville and Congo-Brazzaville

4. Democratic Republic of the Congo (1964–65) — a constitutional renaming

5. Republic of Zaire (1971) — renamed by dictator Mobutu Sese Seko as part of an "authenticity" campaign to strip out colonial-era names, even though "Zaire" is itself a Portuguese corruption of a Kikongo word, not a more authentically African term than "Congo"

6. Democratic Republic of the Congo (1997) — restored almost immediately after Mobutu was overthrown by Laurent-Désiré Kabila

That's six names in just over a hundred years, and the country's largest city was renamed too — Léopoldville became Kinshasa in 1966.

Name changes tied to independence

Ceylon → Sri Lanka (1972) — adopted a name rooted in the Sinhalese language rather than the Portuguese-derived colonial name
Rhodesia → Zimbabwe (1980) — renamed upon independence from British colonial rule, replacing a name honouring colonialist Cecil Rhodes
Dahomey → Benin (1975) — renamed after a historic West African kingdom rather than the French colonial-era name
Upper Volta → Burkina Faso (1984) — literally means "land of upright/honest people" in local languages, replacing a name describing the country only by its river location
French Sudan → Mali (1960) — dropped the colonial reference entirely upon independence

The wider wave of independence-era renamings

Zimbabwe, Benin, and Burkina Faso weren't isolated cases — dropping a colonial-era territorial name for a self-chosen one was one of the most common acts of newly independent governments across Africa and the Pacific in the mid-to-late 20th century:

| Colonial name | New name | Year |

|---|---|---|

| Gold Coast | Ghana | 1957 |

| Bechuanaland | Botswana | 1966 |

| Basutoland | Lesotho | 1966 |

| Nyasaland | Malawi | 1964 |

| Northern Rhodesia | Zambia | 1964 |

| Gilbert Islands | Kiribati | 1979 |

| New Hebrides | Vanuatu | 1980 |

Ghana's case is particularly notable: as the first sub-Saharan African country to gain independence from colonial rule, its choice to adopt the name of a historic West African empire — rather than keep "Gold Coast," a name describing only the resource Europeans extracted from it — set the template many other newly independent nations followed.

Name changes for political reasons

Persia → Iran (1935) — the government requested the international community use "Iran," the name Iranians had used for the country themselves for centuries
Siam → Thailand (1939) — adopted to reflect Thai ethnic identity rather than a name of disputed origin; the country briefly reverted to "Siam" from 1945–1949 before switching back to Thailand for good — one of the few name changes to flip twice
Burma → Myanmar (1989) — renamed by the ruling military government, though the change remains politically contentious and some governments and media still use "Burma"
Swaziland → Eswatini (2018) — renamed by royal decree to remove the colonial-era English name and use the country's own name in siSwati
Czechoslovakia → Czechia and Slovakia (1993) — split into two countries entirely, rather than a single renaming, following the peaceful Velvet Divorce

Name changes for clarity or branding

Ivory Coast → Côte d'Ivoire (1986) — requested that its French name be used untranslated in every language, one of the earliest examples of a country asking the world to stop translating its name at all
Czech Republic → Czechia (2016) — adopted a short-form common name specifically to match the one-word style of neighbours like Slovakia and Germany, while "Czech Republic" remains the official long-form name
Macedonia → North Macedonia (2019) — added "North" to resolve a long-running dispute with Greece, which has its own northern region called Macedonia
Cape Verde → Cabo Verde (2013) — requested that its Portuguese name be used internationally instead of the English translation, following the same logic as Ivory Coast decades earlier

Name changes reversed or still disputed

Netherlands' "Holland" nickname — the Dutch government asked international media in 2020 to stop using "Holland" (technically just two of its twelve provinces) as a stand-in for the whole country
Turkey → Türkiye (2022) — requested the international community use the Turkish spelling "Türkiye" instead of the English "Turkey," partly to distance the country's name from the bird and unflattering English idioms

For more on how country names carry deeper political and cultural meaning, see countries named after real people and official country names vs common names. Many of these renamed nations also appear on our list of countries that no longer exist under their former names.

Quick reference table

|---|---|---|---|

Common mistakes people make

Assuming every renamed country's old name is now "wrong" to use in all contexts — some, like Burma/Myanmar, remain genuinely disputed depending on the political stance of the speaker
Confusing a full country split (Czechoslovakia into two countries) with a simple renaming (Swaziland to Eswatini) — these are different kinds of change entirely
Forgetting that some name requests (Türkiye, dropping "Holland") are recent and international usage hasn't fully caught up yet
Assuming a name change only ever happens once — the DRC and Thailand both show that a country's name can shift back and forth as governments change

How we verified this list

Dates and historical details are cross-checked against Britannica and Wikipedia's List of Country Name Changes. Where a name change remains politically contested (Burma/Myanmar, Türkiye/Turkey), we've noted that explicitly rather than presenting one side as settled.

FAQs

Why did Burma change its name to Myanmar?

The ruling military government renamed the country in 1989, though the change remains politically contentious and some governments still use "Burma."

Why did Swaziland become Eswatini?

King Mswati III announced the change by royal decree in 2018 to remove the English colonial-era name and use the country's own name in the local language.

Is "Czech Republic" or "Czechia" correct?

Both are correct — Czechia is the short-form common name adopted in 2016, while Czech Republic remains the official long-form name.

Why did Turkey ask to be called Türkiye?

The Turkish government requested the change in 2022, partly to better represent the country's culture and partly to distance the name from the English word for the bird.

Which country has changed its name the most times?

The Democratic Republic of the Congo, by a wide margin — it has been called the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of Zaire, and Democratic Republic of the Congo again, all within about 110 years.

Has any country changed its name and then changed it back?

Yes — both Thailand (Siam → Thailand → Siam → Thailand, 1939–1949) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (which reverted to its pre-Zaire name in 1997) did exactly this.

Test yourself

Once the list feels familiar, try guessing a country's former name before checking the tables above. The Democratic Republic of the Congo's history is the hardest to get right — most people can only name one of its six official names.

Put it into practice

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