a that's the seat of government, but isn't part of any state. The drive for Distrito Federal to become a state led to the name change, and the name chosen was the one the rest of the world uses. Mexicans still call it Distrito Federal or DF, however.
Cairo, Egypt Photo: Alamy
In Arabic, Al Najm Al Qahir is the conquering or vanquishing star – aka, Mars. Mars was allegedly rising when the current Egyptian capital was founded, hence the official name of Cairo is Al-Qāhirah. Approximately, this means the vanquishing city or place of Mars. As with many names of Arabic origin, the Europeans mangled this until it came out as Caire in French, Kairo in German and Cairo in English.
Doha, Qatar Photo: Alamy
Another excellent example of mangled Anglicisation of Arabic places is Doha, the capital of Qatar. In Arabic, it's Ad-Dawḥah. But Arabic script doesn't transcribe perfectly to Latin script, so you can end up with several different spellings of the original. Sometimes the translated names drop the Al or Ad in front of place name, other times they incorporate it, as with Algiers – locally known as Al-Jazā'ir.
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