Benlo Park

Palindromic Place Names

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
Letters	Place	Map	Country
11	Areahahaera		AU
11	Anahanahana		MA
10	Tolottolot		ID
10	Talattalat		ID
10	Parapparap		AU
09	Tassessat		NE
09	Tassassat		ML
09	Tamahamat		ML
09	Tamahamat		ML
09	Tamahamat		ML
09	Tabadabat		NE
09	Paraparap		AU
09	Nawagawan		IN
09	Nawagawan		IN
09	Nawagawan		IN
09	Nawagawan		IN
09	Nagubugan		PH
09	Medugudem		IN
09	Madaradam		TD
09	Letomotel		DE
09	Kinikinik		CA
09	Kinikinik		US
09	Kanakanak		US
09	Ellemelle		BE
09	Dragsgard		DK
09	Dabarabad		IN
09	Dabababad		IR
09	Caraparac		PE
09	Assamassa		PT
09	Arrawarra		AU
09	Arrawarra		AU
09	Allagalla		LK
08	Idappadi		IN
08	Burggrub		DE
08	Burggrub		DE
08	Burggrub		DE
08	Burggrub		DE
08	Burggrub		DE
08	Allaalla		ID

Palindromic Place Names with other characters
Letters	Place	Map	Country
15	Tropria Airport		US
13	Nerren Nerren		AU
11	Umolo-Olomu		NG
09	Ward Draw		US
09	Ollo Ollo		PE
09	Occo Occo		PE
09	Ekal Lake		CA
09	Alan Nala		IN