Swaziland Is Now Eswatini

I wouldn't be surprised if Scott kept the listings under "Swaziland". Ivory Coast officially renamed itself Côte d'Ivoire some time ago (the country name in French, their official language) and asked that the press (in any language) refer to them using the French language name -- pretty much exactly analogous to this situation: the "name change" is really just the old name, but in their local language. Scott, last I looked, still lists Côte d'Ivoire stamps under the English name Ivory Coast.

Place names in other languages would appear to be a whole can of worms.

Often names seem to be translated with what seems like a complete indifference to the native name thus giving us Germany in English and Allemagne in French for a place that the Germans like to call Deutschland.

Other times naming conventions seem to bow to local sensibilities which could account for Bombay now being known as Mumbai and Peking as Beijing in English, although I have yet to see a Chinese restaurant serving Beijing duck!

So it probably makes sense for English speakers to continue to refer to Côte d'Ivoire as the Ivory Coast, it is as least a direct translation and also a lot easier to type for those of us with regular US and UK keyboards.

With regard to catalogues. I don't have a Scott but my SG Southern & Central African refers to countries by their current name. We thus find Basutoland under Lesotho, Rhodesia under Zimbabwe etc. So to maintain consistency I think that we can expect to find Swaziland under eSwatini in a future Gibbons.

Clive

Makes sense Clive.

"But Czechoslovakia didn't become Czech Republic : it was splitted into two separate nations,Czech Republic and Slovakia."

Very true -- but part of it did! In my comment, I left off Slovakia for the sake of simplicity -- but I actually collect both of these "new" countries just as I collect(ed) Czechoslovakia. Or should I say I say I collect the Czech and Slovak parts of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire which was its original stamp-issuing name?

So:
Austro-Hungary --> Czechoslovakia (and others) --> Czech Republic and Slovakia --> Today Czechia and Slovakia . . . with this latest change merely being a name change for the former, not a new country. Sexier, I suppose.

Next thing you know Switzerland will rename itself "Swissia". I kind of like that!

These are excerpts from the CIA World Factbook regarding the names of some of the nations mentioned in this thread.







If I get any stamps from nations with changed names, I will probably modify the Steiner page with the new name. I already do that for Ottoman Empire and U.S.S.R.

Robert