"New" City, Old Place, Same Name Quiz

Answer: 1664

Non-native settlement of the New Netherlands began in 1613 when a Dutch fur trapper based himself there. A permanent settlement was established in 1623 on Governor's Island. In 1625 Fort Amsterdam was built on lower Manhattan and the name was changed to New Amsterdam shortly thereafter. In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant became last Director-General of New Netherland but he was unable to gather support when, in 1664, the English troops demanded the colony and hence, promptly named it New York after the English Yorkshire city. It was surrendered without bloodshed. It was seized back by the Dutch in 1673 but retained by the British in 1674. New York was briefly the national US capital in 1776.

Its English namesake has been settled since Roman times (71 BC) and was known then as Eboracum. It was known as a railway hub and confectionery manufacturing centre but this evolved into a tourist, health care and university city. Its most notable landmarks are the superb Gothic Cathedral, York Minster, which can trace its history back to the eighth century, and The Shambles which is an old street in the city centre, with overhanging buildings that almost touch each other from either side of the street.

Answer: It surrounds New Delhi

Until 1911, Calcutta (Kolkata) was the capital of India during the British Raj. A decision was made at this time to place the capital within Delhi but as a separate entity.
The new capital was inaugurated on 13 February 1931.
The National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi contains both Delhi and New Delhi but these are two distinct entities. New Delhi resides entirely with Delhi as one of its 11 districts.

Answer: Another city's airport

Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia was settled as a penal settlement in 1804. It was where the most unruly prisoners were sent to mine coal from the nearby Hunter Valley upriver on the Hunter. It was originally called Coal Town but soon became Newcastle named after its English namesake from which many of the coal miners came. Today it is a thriving city of over 300 000 people. While it is still the largest coal exporting harbour in the world, the city's main industries have changed from heavy industry such as steel production to tourism (it has great city beaches) and university and health care related industries. The airport code for this city is NTL.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne has been settled since Roman times, was named after the castle built there in 1080 by William the Conqueror's son, and became an important wool centre in the 14th century. Coal mined nearby in the 16th century made it to the port at Newcastle for shipment and a thriving ship building industry featured a little further upstream. The Tyne Bridge is an icon of the city and is not dissimilar to the Sydney Harbour Bridge 180km south of the Australian Newcastle. While Newcastle-upon-Tyne is smaller than its Australian counterpart, the comparable regional area population and economic positioning in their respective countries are similar. The airport code for this city is NCL.

Newcastle under Lyme named after its castle built in the 12th century and either the Lime forest nearby or the Lyme Brook. It is a market town in Shropshire and has no airport.

The airport code NEW belongs to Lakefront Airport in New Orleans. This was the main airport in New Orleans until 1946 when a much larger airport was built west of the city (now the Louis Armstrong international Airport).

Answer: Connecticut

New London is a popular name for a town in the US with no less than twelve towns with the same name (CT, IN, IA, MD, MN, MO, NH, NC, OH, TX, VA, WI). The largest is in Connecticut. The size of the town is modest compares to its English namesake (over eight million people).

The city has a steady population of around 25000 but when combined with nearby Norwich, it forms a metropolitan area exceeding 250 000 people. The city is also located on the Thames River and is also a seaport and a coastal town in the south-eastern part of the state, located halfway between Boston and New York City.

Answer: False

Plymouth in Devon in England can trace its settlement back to the bronze age. It was a trading port and an important naval town and later became a city in 1929.

Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts was settled and led by the pilgrim William Bradford in 1620. It was named after Plymouth England from where the pilgrims left and became known as New Plymouth. This settlement eventually died out in 1691 due to lack of a formal charter. The area was incorporated into the Province of Massachusetts Bay in 1692.

New Plymouth NZ, is named after Plymouth England. It was settled by free settlers who were encouraged to migrate by The Plymouth Company (based in Plymouth England under the direction of Thomas Woolcombe) starting in 1840 (220 years after Plymouth Colony). New Plymouth is a pleasant coastal city of less than 100 000 people on the south western coast of the North Island in the shadow of Mount Taranaki, a thirty minute drive from the city centre which is on the beach. The area's tourist agency promotes the region where you can swim and surf in the morning and snowboard and ski in the afternoon.
Despite New Zealand being the only country in the world that starts with "New", there are only two places that start with "New": New Plymouth and New Brighton, a beachside suburb of Christchurch. This New Brighton is not named after the English seaside town of Brighton but the English Merseyside town of New Brighton.

Answer: No

Jersey in the English Channel is a Crown Dependency of the UK. It is a small island just off the coast of France. It has just over 100 000 people. New Jersey, its namesake in the US, is the 47th smallest state but the 11th most populous with over nine million people. Surprisingly the population densities of the two places are very similar, more so when you discover NJ has the highest population density of any US state. Paradoxically, for such a populous state, NJ has few large cities with only two Newark (NEWark), the largest, and Jersey City having over 250 000 people. Trenton is the capital and has less than 100 000 people. Jersey City and Newark are just west of Manhattan. Trenton is further south half way between New York City and Philadelphia.

Answer: False

Newport, Wales is a seaport on the southern coast of Wales between Cardiff and the English border. It has been known since Roman times. It moved downstream in the 11th century where Newport Castle was built. Until the 1850s it was a major coal exporting port until Cardiff became a closer port to the coalfields. Newport is Wales' third largest city.

Newport Rhode Island, is a small city with a disproportionate influence on early colonial life. It was formed in 1639 when several settlers left nearby Portsmouth (Rhode Island) because of religious differences. They were soon joined by Nicholas Eastern who was ejected from Massachusetts for maintaining heretical beliefs. There is no evidence it was named after Newport Wales but it appears was called Newport to distinguish it from the nearby Portsmouth. Newport was the first capital of the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in 1663. The first governor was installed here and continued to live in Newport when the RI capital moved to Providence permanently in 1904. Contemporary Newport is a major tourist destination in the summer.

Answer: False

Orleans is a smallish but important city in France. It is only 110 km south west of Paris but strategically, it is cited on the northernmost point of the Loire River, the closest point to Paris and with a rare bridge crossing. In the middle ages, along with Paris and Rouen, Orleans was one of the three most influential cities in France.

The city has not expanded as rapidly as other major centres (perhaps because of its proximity to Paris) and it has a steady population of 110-120 000 people. New Orleans is located in south central USA.

It is the largest city in Louisiana. In 2005, with Hurricane Katrina bearing down on the city, it was evacuated. The resulting storm surge and the failure of the Mississippi River Levee system meant 80% of the city was flooded.

The population of New Orleans fell from an estimated 485,000 (2000 figure) to an estimated 230,000 after Katrina (July 2006) - a decrease of 255,000 people (i.e. over half of the city's population) By 2015, the population was estimated at 386,000.

Answer: True

The origins of Westminster were known before the Norman invasion in the 11th century. Edward the Confessor built an abbey there then a palace which drew wealth from the City of London which was separated by fields. Today the City of Westminster is an inner borough of London and occupies a large portion of the central city and the West End. New Westminster was settled on the North bank of the Fraser River and thought to be more defensible from the Americans who were considered a threat once gold was discovered in BC.

The original settlement was called Queensborough after Queen Victoria in 1858. It is reported that the good Queen did not like the name so she changed it to New Westminster after the city (not the abbey). As the national railway reached Vancouver a few miles to the north instead of New Westminster, the city of Vancouver grew more rapidly and soon surrounded New Westminster; at least the city retained its identity.

Answer: Port-de-France

Caledonia is the Latin name given to the area north of Britannia which became Scotland. New Caledonia, the island in the South Pacific, was named by Captain Cook on his second voyage in 1774 as the north east part of the island reminded him of Scotland. The Native people were called Kanakas which was a Melanesian word for "Man". European colonisation occurred in 1851 when a British trader settled in the north of the island in 1851. The French, under orders from Napoleon III, proclaimed the island under the French name. The initial settlement was also in the north but soon moved to a peninsula in the south-west. This was called Port-de-France. Initially it was a penal settlement. It was renamed Noumea in 1866.

New Paris is the name of four small US towns in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Wisconsin.
Nou Camp is the name of the Barcelona FC soccer stadium.
Porto-Novo (New Port) is the capital of Benin (but they speak French!)