Chinese Place Names

Cities and towns in China typically have two- or three-character names, and many of the characters used in these names are shared with other cities and towns. For example, Beijing (±± ¾©) and Nanjing (ÄÏ ¾©) both have the character "¾©" meaning "capital," while Nanjing and Nanchang (ÄÏ ²ý) both have the character "ÄÏ" meaning "south."

In a listing of China's 6,000 largest cities, one hundred individual characters appeared in the names of at least 27 cities. Those one hundred most common characters are listed here. The table shows:

ÖÐ ¹ú µØ ·½ Ãû ×Ö

ÖÐ ¹ú µÄ ³Ç ÊÐ £¬ Ïç ´å µÄ Ãû ×Ö ³£ ³£ ÓÐ Á½ ×Ö »ò Èý ×Ö ¡£ ºÜ ¶à ÄÇ ¸ö ×Ö ±» Ðí ¶à ³Ç ÊÐ £¬ Ïç ´å µÄ Ãû ×Ö Óà ÁË ¡£ ±È Èç ±± ¾© £¬ ÄÏ ¾© ¶¼ ÓÐ ¡º ¾© ¡» ×Ö £¬ Òâ ˼ ÊÇ Ê× ¶¼ £¬ »ò Õß ÄÏ ¾© £¬ ÄÏ ²ý ¶¼ ÓÐ ¡º ÄÏ ¡» ×Ö £¬ Òâ ˼ ¾Í ÊÇ ÄÏ ·½ ¡£

ÔÚ ÖÐ ¹ú ×î ´ó µÄ Áù ǧ ³Ç ÊÐ £¬ Ïç ´å µÄ Ãû ×Ö £¬ Ò» °Ù µ¥ ×Ö ÊÇ ¶þ Ê® Æß ¶à ´Î Óà ÁË ¡£ ÄÇ ¸ö Ò» °Ù ×î³£ Óà µÃ ×Ö Ð´ ÁË ÔÚ Õâ ¸ö µ¥ ×Ó ¡£ µ¥ ×Ó ÉÏ ÓÐ £º

Freq indicates the number of times this character appeared in a listing of 6,000 two- and three-character city names.

Hanzi (ºº ×Ö) is the Chinese character, GB-encoded for display on the Web. If you see something that doesn't look like a Chinese character, you may need to run special software, such as AsiaBridge or NjWin. Demonstration versions are available on the Web. For more information, see http://philo.ucdavis.edu/chinese/online.htm.

Pinyin (Æ´ Òô) is the transliteration of the Chinese character (sorry, no tone markings). Note that, in Chinese, a few characters have multiple pronunciations; the more common one is listed here.

English (Ó¢ ÎÄ) is an abbreviated translation of the character. Note that many Chinese characters have multiple meanings, and the short translation here may not apply to the names of all of the cities which have that character in their name. References used included the Concise (Oxford University Press/Commercial Press, 1986) and Far East (Far East Book Co., 1993). (Neither had a listing for ¶É as lan.)

Char1, Char2, and Char3 indicate the number of times this character appeared as the first, second, or third character of the two- or three-character names. Many characters are commonly used for the second or third character of a city's name, but are hardly ever used for the first character. For example, ³Ç (cheng), is the second character of almost three hundred city names, where it serves as a suffix (meaning -city) for what would otherwise be a one-syllable name. ´ó (da), is the most common first character; it means "big" or "great," and might imply that there could be a corresponding С (xiao) "small" town nearby.

Number Freq Hanzi Pinyin English Char1 Char2 Char3
1 331 ³Ç cheng city 37 294 0
2 286 ɽ shan mountain 20 215 51
3 171 Ñô yang sun; male 18 153 0
4 164 ºÓ he river 41 123 0
5 163 ´ó da great 155 8 0
6 148 ½­ jiang river 31 108 9
7 138 ÐÂ xin new 132 6 0
8 136 ¿Ú kou (river) mouth 4 99 33
9 128 ÄÏ nan south 101 26 1
10 124 °² an peace 41 82 1
11 124 ƽ ping peace; level 63 61 0
12 124 ʯ shi stone 79 42 3
13 121 ¼ò jian select 1 120 0
14 120 Çå qing clear 35 85 0
15 116 Áú long dragon 81 35 0
16 113 ¶« dong east 87 26 0
17 101 ÖÝ zhou state 1 100 0
18 99 Ë® shui water 27 70 2
19 97 Ϫ xi brook 8 86 3
20 95 ׯ zhuang village 5 66 24
21 90 ɳ sha sand 57 31 2
22 83 Âí ma horse 57 26 0
23 82 Î÷ xi west 61 21 0
24 75 ´Å ci porcelain 5 70 0
25 75 Èý san three 72 3 0
26 73 ÌÁ tang pond 6 63 4
27 72 Í· tou head 3 62 7
28 68 ÐË xing pleasure 28 39 1
29 67 Ȯ huang yellow 63 4 0
30 66 ÀÏ lao old 23 43 0
31 65 ÁÖ lin forest 11 53 1
32 63 ÁÙ lin face 63 0 0
33 62 µê dian inn 2 33 27
34 61 ÏØ xian county 1 60 0
35 60 °× bai white 54 6 0
36 60 ³¤ chang long 53 7 0
37 59 ºþ hu lake 20 34 5
38 57 Îä wu martial 45 12 0
39 56 Õò zhen town 12 39 5
40 55 Äþ ning tranquil 20 35 0
41 54 ¸ß gao tall 44 8 2
42 54 ÊÐ shi city 1 44 9
43 54 ÓÀ yong forever 51 3 0
44 53 ¼¯ ji market 5 37 11
45 53 º£ hai ocean 26 25 2
46 51 ¹µ gou ditch 1 27 23
47 51 Ȫ quan spring 8 41 2
48 50 ½ð jin gold 45 5 0
49 48 ÃÅ men gate 2 46 0
50 44 ´¨ chuan river 2 37 5
51 44 Ë« shuang pair 44 0 0
52 43 Ìï tian field 12 31 0
53 43 ºÍ he harmonious 17 25 1
54 42 ÖÐ zhong central 32 9 1
55 41 ¸Û gang harbor 5 23 13
56 41 ¹Å gu ancient 33 5 3
57 41 ¹Ù guan official 27 14 0
58 41 ²Ý cao grass 14 27 0
59 40 ¸Ú gang hill 1 34 5
60 40 ²º bu wharf 5 32 3
61 39 Ȼ hua China 17 22 0
62 39 Áë ling mt range 4 25 10
63 38 ±± bei north 26 12 0
64 38 С xiao little 38 0 0
65 38 ÉÏ shang on 31 7 0
66 38 Íõ wang king 24 14 0
67 38 Ñî yang poplar 36 2 0
68 37 ½Ö jie street 3 30 4
69 36 ƺ ping level 6 18 12
70 36 Ñó yang vast 15 21 0
71 36 ÕÅ zhang open 32 4 0
72 35 ×ó zuo left 5 30 0
73 35 Îå wu five 33 2 0
74 34 Çà qing aqua 29 4 1
75 34 ÎÚ niao bird 28 3 3
76 33 Ȭ hua flower 12 17 4
77 33 Áê ling tomb 8 25 0
78 33 ̨ tai terrace 5 23 5
79 33 Ìì tian heaven 31 2 0
80 32 µÀ dao path 6 25 1
81 32 µÂ de virtue 14 18 0
82 32 ·ï feng wind 23 9 0
83 32 ÀÖ le joyful 13 19 0
84 32 Ô´ yuan source 5 26 1
85 31 ¶¼ du capital 9 21 1
86 31 ·á feng plentiful 11 20 0
87 30 ±¤ bao fort 0 11 19
88 30 °Í ba hope 26 4 0
89 30 ¾® jing well 5 23 2
90 29 ±¦ bao treasure 13 15 1
91 29 ÂÞ luo net 21 8 0
92 29 ÍÍ tun village 2 12 15
93 29 ÔÆ yun cloud 21 8 0
94 28 ¶É lan -- 1 18 9
95 28 ̶ tan pond 7 21 0
96 27 °Ë ba eight 24 3 0
97 27 ÆÖ pu shop 4 21 2
98 27 ËÉ song pine 21 5 1
99 27 Íå wan bay 9 18 0
100 27 ÎÂ wen warm 26 1 0
Compiled May 1998 by Mark Henderson, mhenderson94@post.harvard.edu. Any corrections or suggestions will be appreciated. Data sets copyright © G. William Skinner, University of California, Davis, USA. These data may be redistributed for noncommercial research and educational use provided that customary acknowledgement is made to this source: G. William Skinner, China-T Data Set, Davis: University of California, 1998. Available online: http://qing.ucdavis.edu/.