Double placenames prominently feature the placenames of two or more constituents in double-barrelled form rather than invent a new name. This is often out of consideration for local sensitivities, since the smaller entity may resent its takeover, and may demand its symbolic perpetuation within an amalgamated name so as to propagate the impression of a merger between equals.
Styles
In their English forms, the conjoined names may have the following patterns:
conjunction by hyphenation. While English-speakers are relaxed about using a hyphen or not, this punctuation once caused controversy between Czechs and Slovaks
conjunction with an en dash, typically when the usage is associative, attributive or is a juxtaposition of two independent entities.
CamelCase may sometimes be attempted, but many style guides recommend against this in formal English-language use.
Three-word names for two-part entities are often ambiguous. For example, it may not be clear whether North Rhine-Westphalia is an amalgamation between the north part of the Rhine Province on the one hand and Westphalia on the other (true) or the northern division of some pre-existing place called Rhine-Westphalia (false). While this problem does not arise in German, no entirely satisfactory punctuation of such names has been established in English. In the above case, the hyphen is often omitted because it is misleading. It has been proposed that this state's name be punctuated "North-Rhine/Westphalia" in English, but the solidus or forward slash is also ambiguous.
Binomial placenames are not true double placenames, but elements in a hierarchical naming system. They are a means of distinguishing two entities which share a parent geographic feature. Examples:
Trenton–Mercer is an example of a marketing decision in which a small airport tries to associate itself with a larger city. Ryanair has been criticized for promoting names for airports unusually far from the city from which they are named, such as Paris Beauvais Tillé Airport (a triple name) and Frankfurt-Hahn Airport.
Binomial names may be seen in German-language texts to denominate parts of towns:
Bergen-Belsen: the Belsen section within the municipality of Bergen. (This form is now fixed in English when referring to the Nazi concentration camp and the present memorial there.)
Berlin-Charlottenburg: the district of Charlottenburg, Berlin
The word "and" in its name does not always signify the union of two distinct territories:
In dual naming, words in two different languages have been joined by a hyphen or a slash to become the community's (or geographic feature's) official name, often because of language politics:
Vitoria-Gasteiz: the combination of this city's Spanish name of Vitoria and Basque name of Gasteiz
Aoraki / Mount Cook: mountain in New Zealand with Māori and English names combined. Many geographic features of New Zealand are officially designated in a similar way (and the country as a whole is sometimes unofficially referred to as "Aotearoa New Zealand").
Similarly, places may simply have an official name which consists of two names, such as the Australian territory of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, which consists of the North Keeling Island and the South Keeling Islands.
Transitional names
Sometimes names will be concatenated during a name change. Zimbabwe Rhodesia was the name of the former Rhodesia and future Zimbabwe from June 1 to December 12, 1979.
Papua New Guinea: Territories of Papua and New Guinea; Papua and New Guinea are actually alternate names of the same island, New Guinea, but have been used officially for different parts of this island
Budapest formed in 1873 by the amalgamation of three former capitals, Buda and Óbuda (Old Buda) on the right bank of the Danube, and Pest on the left bank.
Other cities and towns
Bielsko-Biała, a Polish city, is composed of two former towns on opposite banks of the Biała River, Silesian Bielsko and Lesser Poland's Biała, merged in 1951, both deriving from "white" (biała) in Polish.
Boguszów-Gorce, Polish town composed of two former towns of Boguszów and Gorce, merged in 1973
Boldești-Scăeni, Romanian town composed of two former settlements of Boldești and Scăeni, merged in 1968
Boulogne-Billancourt is the name of an industrial in the western suburbs of Paris, France. In 1924, the commune Boulogne-sur-Seine was officially renamed Boulogne-Billancourt to reflect the development of the industrial neighbourhood of Billancourt annexed in 1860. Many smaller French communes have been forced to merge, and double-barrelled names referring to two separate villages are not uncommon (e.g. Boutigny-Prouais in Eure-et-Loir).
Czechowice-Dziedzice, Polish town composed of two former settlements of Czechowice and Dziedzice, merged in 1951, under current name since 1958
Czerwionka-Leszczyny, Polish town composed of two former towns of Czerwionka and Leszczyny, merged in 1962
Dallas–Fort Worth is a metroplex and the usual name for the Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan area in Texas.
Golub-Dobrzyń, Polish town composed of two former towns of Golub and Dobrzyń on opposite banks of the Drwęca River, merged in 1951
Jelcz-Laskowice, Polish town composed of two former municipalities of Jelcz and Laskowice Oławskie, merged in 1987
Kędzierzyn-Koźle, Polish city composed of two former towns of Kędzierzyn and Koźle, merged in 1975
Knokke-Heist is a municipality located in the Belgian province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises the towns Knokke and Heist-aan-Zee that merged also with some other minor locations in 1971.
Konstancin-Jeziorna, Polish town composed of two former towns of Skolimów-Konstancin and Jeziorna, merged in 1969
Morkovice-Slížany, Czech town composed of two former municipalities of Morkovice and Slížany, merged in 1960
Popești-Leordeni, Romanian town composed of two former settlements of Popești and Leordeni, merged in 1873
Rájec-Jestřebí, Czech town composed of two former municipalities of Rájec and Jestřebí, merged in 1960
Ruciane-Nida, Polish town composed of two former settlements of Ruciane and Nida, merged in 1966
Šaštín-Stráže, Slovak town composed of two former settlements of Šaštín and Stráže, merged in 1961
Sedlec-Prčice, Czech town composed of two former municipalities of Sedlec and Prčice, merged in 1957
Tel Aviv-Yafo, located on the Israelicoastal plain, was formed in 1950 when the ancient port city of Jaffa was merged with the Tel Aviv municipality to its north.
This section may require cleanup' to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. The specific problem is: This section should be disbanded, the entries put in the proper sections, and the lead just annotated to mention that some triple placenames are included. Lumping them here is trivia, and makes the other sections incomplete.' Please help improve this section if you can.(July 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
Metropolitan areas composed of multiple cities and shared facilities are often collectively named or referred to with the names of their principal component cities. These are conjoined with an unspaced en dash in formal writing, though not journalism, which hyphenates. Some examples include:
In cases where one of the cities in the metropolitan area is itself conjoined, some other form of punctuation may be used to separate them, e.g. Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, consisting of the cities of Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
Traditionally conjoined entities
Separate entities historically treated as one single unit by tradition or convention:
Melcher-Dallas, Iowa: created by the merger of the cities of Melcher and Dallas in 1986
Miami-Dade County, Florida: The governments of Dade County and its largest city, Miami, have been merged since 1957, but the county did not take its current name until 1997, when county voters passed a referendum to that effect.
More than half of the land area of Alaska is within the Unorganized Borough which is administered directly by the state. Therefore, the United States Government considers the census areas within the Unorganized Borough to be county-equivalent entities. [1] Three of these have double (or triple) names:
