China to remove foreign, bizarre names for roads, buildings

China today said it will stem irregularities in naming the country's roads, bridges, buildings, and residential compounds, targeting arbitrary uses of foreign and bizarre names like Manhattan and Venice.
Civil Affairs Minister Li Liguo has called for 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, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

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.