Category: africa

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Gambia Name Change Reversal

Last year we reported on how the Gambia, a tiny country located along the banks of a river in West Africa, had changed its official name at the UN. The country’s maverick dictator had decided in 2015 to switch from “Republic of The Gambia” to “Islamic Republic of The Gambia”.

Learn More: The Gambia’s 2015-2016 Name Change

Then, this January, the country’s longtime president stepped down. He had unexpectedly conceded defeat in a late-2016 election, though in the end it still took the threat of an invasion by neighboring countries to force him out. Within 10 days, the new president had already declared a reversal of the name change.

Country Short Name:   • The Gambia Official Name:   • Republic of the Gambia Capital: Banjul

Name Change Registered with UN and ISO

Since most of the world’s countries, including the Gambia, are part of the United Nations (UN), it’s expected that if a country’s name changes, the change will be filed with the administrative offices of the UN. This lets world organizations and other countries know they should start using the new name.

Unlike the Gambia’s first name change, which was declared in 2015 but not formally registered until months into 2016, this year’s reversal all happened pretty fast. About a month and a half after the president’s announcement about the rollback, the change was already being distributed to users of ISO 3166, the international standard list of countries and country codes used by organizations and companies all around the world.

That meant the name had already been changed in the UN’s official name database too – ISO bases its country names on official UN usage – though PolGeoNow hasn’t been able to determine exactly when the UN change was made.

Name Changed in Other Languages

Unlike some countries that have only changed their name for foreign language speakers, English is actually the official language of the Gambia. The UN, on the other hand, has six official languages, so the name change reversal also took effect in each of those:

Islam in the Gambia

Even though the country’s earlier name change made it sound like the Islamic religion would be playing a larger role in the government, that didn’t ever really happen. Ninety percent of Gambians are Muslims, and there’s not complete separation between church and state in the country, but the Gambian constitution does protect freedom of religion. In the year and a half since the country was first declared an “Islamic republic” and when the name was changed back, there wasn’t much indication that anything had actually changed.

How Often Do Countries Change Their Names?

Out of the world’s nearly 200 countries, there’s an average of about one official country name change each year, most of them involving adjustments to the country’s full name or preferred English name. The Gambia is the first UN-recognized country to change its name in 2017, while 2016 also saw a slightly different kind of name change for the Czech Republic. (Editor’s Note: As we reported later, the unrecognized, self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic also changed its name, in February 2017.)

Before the Gambia’s original “Islamic Republic” announcement in 2015, no countries had changed their names since Cape Verde in 2013. That African island country changed its preferred English name at the UN to Cabo Verde, the same as its native Portuguese-language name; the same year, war-torn Libya had clarified its new long-form name as “State of Libya”. The year before, Somalia’s 2012 constitution changed the country’s full name to the Federal Republic of Somalia, and a new Hungarian constitution traded “Republic of Hungary” for just “Hungary”.

More substantial changes to countries’ names, not just involving translation decisions or adjustments to full names, are much less common. The best recent examples are Yugoslavia’s name change to “Serbia and Montenegro” in 2003, Western Samoa’s change to just “Samoa” in 1997, and Zaire’s reversion to its previous name of “Democratic Republic of the Congo”, also in 1997.

Click here to see all articles on country name changes!

Graphic of the flag of the Gambia is in the public domain (source).

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US government map of the Gambia (source)

The Gambia Changes Official Name
If you read our review of world political geography changes in 2015, you might remember a brief note on the official name of the Gambia, a tiny country located along the banks of a river in West Africa. Last December, the Gambia’s maverick dictator decided to declare the country an “Islamic republic”, a designation that can have various meanings and is used by four other countries in the world.

At the time, at least one regional news source claimed that the country’s official name had indeed been changed from “Republic of The Gambia” to “Islamic Republic of The Gambia”. But for a country’s name to be formally changed, its government normally has to pass a law or at least issue some kind of proclamation, and at the time it wasn’t clear whether that had actually  happened.

Country Name:   • The Gambia Official Name:   • Islamic Republic of the Gambia Capital: Banjul

New Name Registered with UN and ISO
Since most of the world’s countries, including the Gambia, are part of the United Nations (UN), it’s expected that if the country’s name changes, the change will be filed with the administrative offices of the UN so world organizations and other countries will know to start using the new one.

And earlier this year, that finally happened, with the UN updating its terminology database to show that the Gambia’s official long-form English name had been changed to “the Islamic Republic of the Gambia”.

This confirmed the name change, and soon led to the same modification being made to ISO 3166, the international standard list of countries and country codes that’s used by organizations and companies all around the world.

How Often Do Countries Change Their Names?
Out of the world’s nearly 200 countries, there’s an average of about one official country name change each year, most of them involving changes to the country’s full name or preferred English name. Besides the Gambia, no countries changed their names in 2014 or 2015, with the last country to do so being Cape Verde in late 2013. That African island country changed its preferred English name at the UN to Cabo Verde, the same as its native Portuguese-language name; the same year, war-torn Libya clarified its new long-form name as “State of Libya”. The year before, Somalia’s 2012 constitution changed the country’s full name to the Federal Republic of Somalia, and a new Hungarian constitution traded “Republic of Hungary” for just “Hungary”.

More substantial changes to countries’ names, involving more than just translation decisions or adjustments to full names, are much less common. The best recent examples are Yugoslavia’s name change to “Serbia and Montenegro” in 2003, Western Samoa’s change to just “Samoa” in 1997, and Zaire’s reversion to its previous name of “Democratic Republic of the Congo”, also in 1997.

Name Changed in Other Languages
Unlike some countries that have only changed their name for foreign language speakers, English is actually the official language of the Gambia. The UN, on the other hand, has six official languages, so the country’s new name also had to be translated and made official in each of those languages:

Islam in the Gambia
Although the country’s name change might seem to suggest that the Islamic religion will be playing a larger role in the government, this doesn’t seem to be the case. Ninety percent of Gambians are Muslims, and there is not complete separation between church and state. But the Gambian constitution does protect freedom of religion, and there’s little sign anything is changing in that area.

Graphic of the flag of the Gambia is in the public domain (source).