Names of Cities & Countries in different languages

[[Q]]

Really random question, but this might be a good place to ask since we have a bit of international flavor here:
Why is it that some cities & countries are called something different in English? i.e. Munich/Munchen, Spain/Espana?
I don't understand. if Spain calls themselves Espana, why don't we all just call them Espana?
In Spanish, the United States is called Estados Unidos, which literally translates to United States in Spanish so that makes sense but it doesn't really work the other way around.
Or even spelling: Serbia = Srbija

[Andrew]

Why Are There Different Names for the Same Country?

In a nutshell: everyone has their own name for stuff, some names pre-date countries in their modern state (and thus are still used by other parts of the world), others are the result of mistranslations and mispronunciations. Sometimes the translations line up better than others.

[Jackal]

Pretty much that. The "official" names are also sometimes discarded given they were probably assigned those names under imperial rule.

India changed a bunch of their more western sounding names to more Indian ones some time after the British left. Curacao is in the midst of trying to do the same after distancing themselves from the Netherlands.

[[Q]]

Pretty much that. The "official" names are also sometimes discarded given they were probably assigned those names under imperial rule.

Ah yes, British imperialism. The whole Myanmar/Burma conflict. They were very good at ignoring names that people were already using.

So how did we get the Netherlands and Holland? I stopped using Holland a long time ago

[Jackal]

Holland is something used by people outside of the Netherlands to be honest. Holland is actually a region within the Netherlands. You've got North and South Holland. Some people actually get really offended if you ask them if they are from Holland and it turns out they are from another region.

So for anyone reading; just go with Netherlands.

[Andrew]

So how did we get the Netherlands and Holland? I stopped using Holland a long time ago

Holland is something used by people outside of the Netherlands to be honest. Holland is actually a region within the Netherlands. You've got North and South Holland.

Which ties into what the article I posted was saying. Names for certain regions have ended up being used to describe what eventually became a unified country under a different name entirely, or there was a misunderstanding/mistranslation at some point that led to certain countries being mislabelled elsewhere in the world.