China to clear out foreign, bizarre geographical names

China will stem irregularities in naming the country's roads, bridges, buildings, and residential compounds, targeting arbitrary uses of foreign and bizarre names, said an official in charge of the ongoing survey of geographical names.

Civil Affairs Minister Li Liguo made the remarks at a conference on Tuesday that reviewed the State Council's second survey of the country's geographical names launched in 2014.

Li urged elimination of capricious changes of toponym in order to protect place names with cultural traditions.

Certain types of names will be targeted, including names that damage sovereignty and national dignity, names that violate the socialist core values and conventional morality and names that induce the most public complaints, Li said.

In recent years, many cultural geographical names have disappeared as a result of chaotic name changing practices while residential compounds named after places like Manhattan and Venice have mushroomed.

During the survey, inspectors checked geographical names and related information, gave names to geographical entities without names, set up signs with standard geographical names and established a national database and archive.

China conducted its first geographical names survey in 1983 and 1984. Endi