Updated for 2013

The world is an ever-changing place and hey, cartographers make mistakes. The 2013 edition of the Endonym Map contains the following changes and updates:

• In 2012, Hungary passed a new constitution which shortened the country's name from "Republic of Hungary" to just "Hungary". The map reflects the new name in Hungarian.
• The previous edition of the map showed the name of Mongolia in Mongolian script. Though the script is considered traditional, the Cyrillic alphabet is far more widely used there. The map now shows the name of the country in Cyrillic.
• The "Channel Islands" in the English Channel have been separated into their proper names as the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Bailiwick of Jersey.
• A Pacific island that was discovered to not actually exist has been removed.
• The endonyms of Haiti are now shown both in French and Haitian Creole. This is because French is the dominant written language, while Haitian Creole is by far more commonly spoken.
• The map also contains various typographic and cartographic fixes and clean up.

About Endonyms

An endonym is the name for a place, site or location in the language of the people who live there. These names may be officially designated by the local government or they may simply be widely used.

This map depicts endonyms of the countries of the world in their official or national languages. In cases where a country has more than one national or official language, the language that is most widely used by the local population is shown.

Some world language facts:

• The most common official or national language in the world is English, with 86 countries or territories. These jurisdictions represent roughly one-third the number of total countries and approximately 30% of the planet's land area.
• After English, the most common official languages are French, Spanish and Arabic.
• Combined, these four languages are used officially in 157 countries, about two-thirds of all countries. The small corner maps on the poster below show where these languages are used.