Place names in China primarily refers to Han Chinese names, but also to those used by China's minorities.
Contents
Origins
Spencer (1941) views that Han Chinese place names indicate both domestic cultural and geographical influences, but rarely and cultural influence from other parts of the world. This tendency appeared to be characteristic not only of Chinese place- names in Singapore: in his study of place-names in China, J. E. Spencer notes that 'although Chinese names indicate both domestic cultural and geographical influences, they almost never indicate cultural influence from other parts of the world.77...
Tibetan, Mongolian, Uighur and tribal minorities of China's names are phonetically transcribed into Chinese.
In Chinese grammar
Names for places in China, when referred to in Chinese contain a class identifier. In English this is often translated, while the rest of the name is not. The class identifier in Chinese is placed at the end, in English with the exceptions of mountains and lakes the identifier is placed at the end too. For names of lakes and mountains "X Lake" / "Lake X" and "X Mountain" / "Mount X" both is used.
Some mountain ranges like Tian Shan are referred to English by the Chinese name. "Tian" means sky or heaven and "Shan" means mountain(s), so Tian Shan literally translates as the "Heaven Mountains".
List of class names
E = English, C = Chinese, P = Pinyin