Top 10 Longest Place Names in the World

These are the top 10 longest place names in the world. I don’t know whether you have heard this before or not but this makes me very interesting.

• Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit (168).

This means ‘The city of angels, the great city, the eternal jewel city, the impregnable city of God Indra, the grand capital of the world endowed Royal Palace that resembles the heavenly abode where reigns the reincarnated god, a city given by Indra and built by Vishnukarn’. When the poetic name of Bangkok, capital of Thailand, is used, it is usually abbreviated to ‘Krung Thep’ (city of angels).

• Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipulalapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu (85).

This is the longer version (the other has a mere 83 letters) of the Maori name of a hill in New Zealand. It translates as ‘The place where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, who slid, climbed and swallowed mountains, known as land-eater, played on the flute to his loved one’.

• Gorsafawddachaidraigddanheddogleddollonpenrhynareurdraerhceredigion (67).

A name contrived by the Fairbourne Steam Railway, Gwynedd, North Wales, for the publicity purposes an in order to outdo its rival, No.4. it means ‘The Mawddach station and its dragon teeth at the Northern Penrhyn Road on the golden beach of Cardigan Bay’.

• Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (58).

This is the place in Gwynedd fames for the length of its railway tickets. Its name means ‘St Mary’s Church in the hollow of the white hazel near to the rapid whirlpool of the church of St Tysilo near the Red Cave’. It appears to have been a hoax perpetrated in the 1860s by an unnamed tailor.

• El Pueblo Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de la Porciuncula (57).

The site of a Franciscan mission and the full Spanish name of Los Angeles it means ‘The town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of the Little Portion’. Nowadays it is customarily known by its initial letters, ‘LA’, making it also one of the shortest-named cities in the world.

• Chargoggagoggmanchaugagoggchaubunagungamaug (43).

America’s longest placename, a lake near Webster, Massachusetts, is claimed to mean ‘You fish on your side, I’ll fish on mine, and no one fishes in the middle ‘. It is, however, a hoax name devised in about 1921 by local journalist Larry Daly.

• Lower North Branch Little Southwest Miramichi (40).
• Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asis (40).

Canada’s longest placename – a short river in New Brunswick. The full Spanish name of Santa Fe New Mexico, translates as, ‘Royal city of the holy faith of St Francis Assisi’.

• Te Whakatakanga-o-te-ngarehu-o-te-ahi-a-Tamatea (38).

The hyphenated or single word Maori name of Hammer Springs, New Zealand. Like the second name in this list, it refers to a legend of Tamatea, explaining how the springs were warmed by ‘the falling of the cinders of the fire of Tamatea’.

• Meallan Liath Coire Mhic Dhubhghaill (32).

The longest multiple name in Scotland, a place near Aultanrynie, Highland, alternatively spelled Meallan Laith Coire Mhic Dhughaill (30 letters).