Home › The Countries of the World › The Countries of the World: Arabic

The Countries of the World: Arabic

Algiers is a modified spelling of the Arabic Al Jezair, meaning "the peninsula." Tunis was anciently known as Tunentum, the land of the Tunes; Morocco signifies the territory of the Moors; and Barbary; that of the Berbers. The term Sahara is Arabic for "desert"; while the Soudan denotes, according to the Arabic Belad-ez- Suden, the "district of the blacks." Egypt expresses the Hebrew for "the land of oppression," alluding to the bondage of the Israelites. Senegambia was originally so named owing to its situation between the Senegal and Gambia rivers.

The Gold Coast is that portion of Guinea on the West Coast of Africa where gold is found. Guinea is a native West African term meaning "abounding in gold." In Zanzibar, properly written Zanguebar, we have an inversion of the Arabic Ber-ez-Zing, the "coast of the negroes." Zululand is the country of the Zulus. By the Transvaal is meant the territory beyond the river Vaal; just as in Europe the Hungarians call a portion of their country TRANSYLVANIA, from its situation "beyond the wood." Natal received its name from Vasco di Gama because he discovered it on the Feast of the Nativity. The settlements of the Dutch Boers in South Africa are designated the Orange Free States from the circumstance that their original settlers were emigrants from the Principality of The Countries of the World.

Orange, in Holland. Cape Colony is the British colony in South Africa, so called after the parent settlement at Cape Town, which dates from the year 1826. The Cape of Good Hope, discovered by Bartholomew de Diaz in 1487, was so named (Cabo de Bon Esperance) by John II., King of Portugal, who, finding that Diaz had reached the extremity of Africa, regarded it as a favourable augury for future maritime enterprises.