Benlo Park

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Paragliding - Ager Spain

Palindromic Place Names

Anahanahana

Anu Garg’s A.Word.A.Day newsletter theme of the week (August 26, 2019) was palindromes — words which read the same forwards and backwards.

In the weekly follow-up newsletter, Richard Stallman pointed out that Neuquén, Argentina, has a name that is a seven-letter palindrome and wondered if any place names were longer palindromes.

I wondered, too, so I ran a little program on the geonames.org database of almost 12 million place names. The answers depend on the rules for the search, so I grouped the results into the tables below. Click on the name to google for more information or click the globe icon to find the place on the map. The two letter country codes are decoded at iso.org.

In 2011 a similar query led me to list the longest Isogrammic Place Names having no repeating letters.

Single word Palindromic Place Names
LettersPlaceMapCountry
11AreahahaeraAU
11AnahanahanaMA
10TolottolotID
10TalattalatID
10ParapparapAU
09TassessatNE
09TassassatML
09TamahamatML
09TamahamatML
09TamahamatML
09TabadabatNE
09ParaparapAU
09NawagawanIN
09NawagawanIN
09NawagawanIN
09NawagawanIN
09NagubuganPH
09MedugudemIN
09MadaradamTD
09LetomotelDE
09KinikinikCA
09KinikinikUS
09KanakanakUS
09EllemelleBE
09DragsgardDK
09DabarabadIN
09DabababadIR
09CaraparacPE
09AssamassaPT
09ArrawarraAU
09ArrawarraAU
09AllagallaLK
08IdappadiIN
08BurggrubDE
08BurggrubDE
08BurggrubDE
08BurggrubDE
08BurggrubDE
08AllaallaID
Palindromic Place Names with other characters
LettersPlaceMapCountry
15Tropria AirportUS
13Nerren NerrenAU
11Umolo-OlomuNG
09Ward DrawUS
09Ollo OlloPE
09Occo OccoPE
09Ekal LakeCA
09Alan NalaIN