Danish exonyms

Danish language exonyms for non-Danish speaking locations exist, primarily in Europe, but many of these are no longer commonly used, with a few notable exceptions.

Rom (Rome), Lissabon (Lisboa (Lisbon)), Sankt Petersborg (St Petersburg) and Prag (Prague) are still compulsory, while e.g. Venedig is more common than Venezia (Venice).

In the decades following World War II, there has been a strong tendency towards replacing Danish exonyms with the native equivalent used in the foreign country itself.

Possibly this is because many of these Danish forms (e.g. for names in Belgium, Italy and Eastern Europe) were imported from German.

Currently, one can still see Danish road signs pointing towards Flensborg and Hamborg across the border, however Nibøl has been replaced by Niebüll.

In Southern Schleswig, the region south of the Danish-German border, a set of original (or, in some cases, reconstructed) Danish placenames exists alongside the German names, just as most North Slesvig placenames have German counterparts dating from the period under Prussian rule (1864–1920).

From 2008, municipalities in Schleswig-Holstein have been allowed bilingual town signs with the official minority languages: Danish, North Frisian and Low German.

An example of radical use of Danish exonyms can be found in many street names on the island of Amager, a part of Copenhagen.

Less well-known places (to Danes, at any rate) will tend to retain their Finnish-language names (Lappeenranta instead of Villmanstrand, Iisalmi instead of Idensalmi).

Larger and well-known locations are more likely to be referred to by means of a Danish exonym, e.g. Flensborg and Slesvig [By], but also Hamborg which is not in the Schleswig region.

Some of these forms are archaic, based on names used in the 17th century prior to the surrender of the Eastern Danish lands Skåne, Halland and Blekinge to Sweden.

Modern usage is primarily confined to history books[citation needed] and Scanian activists.