London - What’s in a name? The intrepid may find out — by visiting the world’s most strangely titled places.
They include Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump in Canada; Fray Bentos, a town in Uruguay; Devil’s Mother, a peak in Ireland; Murderkill, an American river; Disappointment Island in New Zealand; Blubberhouses, a Yorkshire village; and Bing Bong, a port in Australia.
All these unlikely place names are listed in the new edition of the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World.
The shortest place name is Å, a settlement on the Lofoten Islands in Norway. The longest town names are Montigny-Mornay-Villeneuve-sur-Vingeanne in France and Nossa Senhora da Graça de Póvoa e Meadas in Portugal.
The longest name with no English vowels, however, is Ysbyty Ystwyth, a village in Ceredigion, West Wales. The most popular place names are Newport, San Juan and Santa Cruz, which each occur 29 times. And 280 place names are palindromes — the same backwards as forwards — with the longest being Kanakanak, in Alaska.
The atlas also includes a mountain named after the US President. Mount Obama in Antigua was named by Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer to mark Obama’s 48th birthday. It used to be called Boggy Peak. - Daily Mail
* The Times Comprehensive Atlas Of The World is out now (about R2 700).