Generally, in North America, we don’t think about what place names mean much. Either they’re in English (e.g. Grand Falls, Red River) or they come from French, Spanish, German, or any number of native American languages, and often very corrupted from the original language.
In Korea, however, all major place names can be written with Chinese characters, which makes it easy to look up the meaning. The notable exception to this is Seoul, which cannot be written in Chinese characters. I have made a map of Korea with the meanings of all major cities on it in English. (In case you’re wondering, the name “Korea” comes from a former kingdom called Goryeo, which means “high beauty”.)
I live in Perfect Area. (original map from es.rice.edu)
The Green-Walled Tower 
August 31st, 2013 at 11:31 am
This is funny! Thanks! π
August 31st, 2013 at 11:41 am
Interesting. Must equate to many of the Native American names in the US.
August 31st, 2013 at 12:05 pm
Yes, they’re mostly about natural features. There are some smaller towns near where I live that have very cool sounding names, like Phoenix East and Dragon’s Entry. They were too small to put on this map though.
August 31st, 2013 at 8:59 pm
“…and where are you from?”
“Oh, just a little town over by Mugwort Mtn. called Dragon’s Entry.”
August 31st, 2013 at 10:07 pm
π
August 31st, 2013 at 12:16 pm
That’s really cool.
August 31st, 2013 at 12:18 pm
Yeah, I think places have more significance when you know what the name means. Incidentally, I was just “Depressed Hill Island” last weekend. It didn’t seem that depressing, although maybe if you were there for your whole life.
August 31st, 2013 at 12:40 pm
I lived and taught in the Big Field for many years – or Great Field as we referred to it – well done my friend – I must share this with my Korean students…
August 31st, 2013 at 1:19 pm
Thanks. Daejeon is a great city and only an hour away from me. We go there mostly for Costco though. π
August 31st, 2013 at 1:05 pm
This is awesome! I wonder if anyone has done it for Australia with all theABoriginal langage place names we have?!
August 31st, 2013 at 1:20 pm
That would be interesting. I know in North America, we have so many names that come from Native American languages. Toronto, for instance, means “the place where trees stand in the water”. I found that out today.
September 1st, 2013 at 8:06 am
I hope those trees are aquatic trees.
August 31st, 2013 at 2:58 pm
These are lovely names, so peaceful and pretty, except for maybe Depressed Hill Island. Funny! Sounds kind of mythical, and the translation for Korea is the best.
August 31st, 2013 at 6:53 pm
Love these names π
August 31st, 2013 at 7:43 pm
You could add the Japanese place names on the far right corner, too. Hiroshima (wide island), Fukuoka (Lucky Hill), Kitakyushu (Northern Nine Islands).
August 31st, 2013 at 7:48 pm
I thought about doing that. I was going to do the North Korean cities too but I ran out of time and energy.
August 31st, 2013 at 7:49 pm
Republicou isso em carvanbustrucke comentado:
I am reblogging this history due to relevance for my followers !
September 1st, 2013 at 12:38 am
Cute! You’ve gotten me really curious about the actual names in Korean…
September 1st, 2013 at 8:44 am
I had to guess at some, since in some cases the hanja could be translated several ways into English. If you gind anything out, let me know.
September 19th, 2013 at 3:07 pm
loved those inner meanings! they seem like thoughtful people, most indian cities have just names- without much inner meanings.
September 21st, 2013 at 10:23 pm
I’m sure the Indian names used to have meaning, even if it’s forgotten. In North America, a lot of the names are impossible to know without knowing the native American languages they come from.
February 23rd, 2018 at 12:25 am
As Korean, this is so funny and you got insightful mind. respect
March 11th, 2018 at 7:38 pm
Thanks for the map. Just saw your map in a online newspaper and came here to see the original.
http://m.nocutnews.co.kr/news/4935675
November 28th, 2018 at 2:01 am
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November 29th, 2018 at 9:47 pm
This is hilarious to Korean speakers because if we were asked what the names meant we would be able to tell, but we never actually think about the meanings. This is an example of how an outsider can see something the insiders are blind to.
December 5th, 2018 at 8:41 pm
That’s quite true. When I first started learning, one of the Koreans teaching a small class suddenly realized that they used one type of numbers for hours and the other kind for minutes. Of course she knew it her whole life, but she had never thought of it consciously before. π
December 7th, 2018 at 11:51 pm
As a Korean, I find this post very interesting. Koreans often forget how creative and thoughtful their ancestors were, and such posts truly remind them of it. One small thing I would like to point out is that Ulleungdo would be called Luxuriant/Dense Forest Hill Island, rather than Depressed Hill Island. “Ul” can mean depression in other cases, but Ulleungdo uses the character “Ul” that means dense. Ulleungdo is an island of thick bamboo forest, and thus the name. Anyhow, thank you for the interesting post!
December 9th, 2018 at 10:32 pm
Thanks for the comment and the note about Ulleungdo. The problem with hanja is that they can have several meanings over the many years and for some I had to guess. This was a few years ago and looking back, I think I got Jeju wrong too. Oh well. π