ExplainedDiplomacy
China's 'standardised names' for Indian places: how the lists work and why India always answers
Beijing has issued five batches of Chinese names for places in Arunachal Pradesh since 2017. This month India named 28 features in Ladakh, and China called that illegal. What these lists are, what they change on the ground and why both capitals bother.
The short answer
China's Ministry of Civil Affairs periodically publishes lists of what it calls standardised names for mountains, rivers, passes and settlements in Arunachal Pradesh, which Beijing claims as 'Zangnan', or southern Tibet. Five lists since 2017 have covered 89 places. The names do not move troops or change who governs the land, but each side treats a name on an official map as a statement of its claim, and answers the other so that silence is never read as acceptance.
What has China been doing?
Every so often China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs publishes a list of Chinese names for places that India governs as part of Arunachal Pradesh.
China claims most of the state, about 90,000 sq km, and calls it “Zangnan”, or southern Tibet. The lists give each mountain, river, pass, lake or settlement a Chinese name, written in Chinese characters, Tibetan script and pinyin, often with exact coordinates. Beijing describes them as “standardised” geographical names, the same term it uses for naming places inside China.
How many lists have there been?
Five since 2017, covering 89 places in all.
The first came in 2017 with six names. A second list of 15 followed in 2021, then 11 in 2023 and 30 in 2024. The fifth, with 27 names, was published on 12 May 2025.
China's name lists for Arunachal Pradesh
- 2017First list, 6 names
- 2021Second list, 15 names
- April 2023Third list, 11 names
- Spring 2024Fourth list, 30 names, effective 1 May 2024
- 12 May 2025Fifth list, 27 names, taking the total to 89
What rules does China use?
The lists are issued under China’s national rules on place names, which the State Council revised in 2022.
Those rules cover how places are named, renamed and recorded. Implementing measures attached to the 2024 list said that foreign-language names which could harm China’s territorial claims should not be quoted or translated without authorisation. In other words, Chinese official maps and documents are expected to use the Chinese names, not the Indian ones, for places Beijing claims.
The timing of the lists has often followed moments China objected to. The 2024 batch came weeks after Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened the Sela tunnel, which gives all-weather road access to Tawang, and after the United States said it recognised Arunachal Pradesh as Indian territory.
Does a name change anything on the ground?
No. A name on a map does not move a single soldier or change who runs a place.
Arunachal Pradesh is an Indian state, with its own elected government, Indian administration and Indian voters. The Chinese names appear on Chinese maps, in Chinese state media and in Chinese official documents. They have no effect on daily life in the places concerned.
What they do is build a paper record. Each list is a formal restatement of China’s claim, in a form that can be pointed to later in talks or in public argument.
Why does India respond every time?
Because in a boundary dispute, an official claim left unanswered can be presented later as one the other side accepted.
India’s replies have been short and consistent. In March 2024 External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar called China’s claims “ludicrous”, adding: “The claims are ludicrous to begin with and remain ludicrous today.” When the fifth list appeared in May 2025, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal rejected what he called “vain and preposterous attempts” and said: “Creative naming will not alter the undeniable reality” that Arunachal Pradesh is “an integral and inalienable part of India.”
The replies also serve a domestic purpose. People in Arunachal, and their elected leaders, expect New Delhi to say plainly that the state is not up for discussion.
What happened with Ladakh this month?
This time India did the naming, and China objected.
On 2 October the government announced official names for 28 peaks, passes, glaciers, valleys and lakes in Ladakh and placed them on a Survey of India map of the Union Territory. They include Zorawar Peak, Kanishka Peak and Guru Rinpoche Lake. Several of the features lie in or near Aksai Chin, the high plateau China has held since the 1950s and India claims as part of Ladakh.
On 13 October Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning called the move “illegal, null and void” and said: “China has never recognised the so-called Union Territory of Ladakh.” Jaiswal replied the same day: “No amount of denial by the Chinese side can change this established fact.”
So is this a new phase?
It is the same argument, now running both ways.
For years India answered China’s lists without issuing its own. Naming features on its own side of the claim line, including areas China controls, brings India’s practice closer to China’s: a formal record, on an official map, of what each country says is its territory. Neither side expects the other to adopt its names. Both expect the record to matter when the boundary is eventually discussed, which is why the exchange is likely to continue with each new list.