Astana became the capital of the Central Asian country of Kazakhstan in 1997. But if you’re looking for Astana on a map today, you won’t find it. The city was renamed Nur-Sultan in 2019, after ex-President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Nursultan was elected Kazakhstan’s first president and served for three decades.

If you traveled to Indonesia before the 1940s, you might have flown into its large city of Batavia. Situated on the island of Java on the northern coast of Jakarta Bay near the mouth of Ciliwung River, Batavia got its name from Dutch settlers in the early 1600s. It wasn't until World War II broke out that the Japanese renamed the city Jakarta during their occupation of the country.

In the 1870s, a small community of engineers and surveyors — who were working on a new railroad connecting the Great Lakes to the West Coast — popped up near the Red River, in present-day North Dakota. The settlement was first named Centralia, but a short time later, a railroad official decided the town should be renamed Fargo after William G. Fargo, a financial backer of the railroad.

Kyoto was Japan's capital city until 1868, when the Tokugawa Shogunate ended and imperial rule under the emperor returned. The emperor moved to the city of Edo, which was renamed Tokyo. Written in English, Kyoto and Tokyo also happen to be anagrams — meaning one can be spelled by rearranging the same letters in the other word.

Known as Amman today, the capital of Jordan was founded between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago. It was conquered by King Ptolemy II Philadelphus of Egypt around 2,300 years ago and renamed Philadelphia in his honor. In the 19th century, it was abandoned but resettled and became the capital for the newly created country of Jordan.

Oslo’s current name is the oldest one; it’s what inhabitants called the first settlement on the east side of the Bjørvika inlet, which likely appeared around 1000 CE. In 1624, King Christian IV changed its name to Christiania, in honor of himself. Beginning in 1877, the name was spelled Kristiania. In 1925, it was changed back to its original moniker, Oslo.

Located on the Arabian Sea, India’s booming financial and commercial center of Mumbai was known as Bombay during the days of British colonialism, perhaps due to a Portuguese name for the city, “Bom Baim,” which meant “good harbor.” Indians themselves always called it Mumbai, and the name was officially resurrected in 1995, although some still call it Bombay.

Formerly known as Saigon, Vietnam’s capital became a major port and trading city along the Mekong River delta during French rule that started in the 17th century. But in 1976, it was renamed Ho Chi Minh City after Vietnam’s revolutionary leader of the same name. However, some locals still refer to it as Saigon.

When the British took over the settlement of Toronto in the 18th century, they renamed it York after the Duke of York. In the 1830s, the city’s legislative council changed the name back to Toronto, its original name — which came from an Indigenous word meaning “where there are trees standing in the water.”

The city that we now know as Istanbul was founded as Constantinople in 324 CE by Roman Emperor Constantine I. It served as the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire (aka the Byzantine Empire). When the Ottomans took over in the 15th century, locals began to call the city "Istanbul," a mix of "Islambol" ("city of Islam" in Turkish) and "eis tin Polin" ("to the city" in Greek).