Place Names, Symbolic Power and the Chinese State

Abstract

Place and street names, although apparently an apolitical part of everyday life, are in fact often determined by the state for political ends. In the democratic West, the political aspect of street names is most often revealed in the controversy that can accompany name changes, but authoritarian states often put politics front and center. China, for example, has passed national legislation that restricts street and place names to those that support “national unity and the establishment of socialist modernization,” while prohibiting those that “damage sovereignty or national dignity.” Using a unique dataset of 4.8 million Chinese street names, in this paper I analyze the factors that are associated with unity-promoting names across 122 major Chinese cities. Quantitative analysis and historical data suggest that the central government is most concerned with promoting “correct” names in areas with high ethnic tension or large numbers of ethnic minorities. These results suggest that Beijing sees geographic naming as an important promoter of national unity.