From Czech Republic to Swaziland: The places you’re calling by the wrong name

Strictly speaking, the film should have been called Salmon Fishing in Yemen, not The Yemen. There are many countries that we refer to with "the", but the only countries that officially have the definite article are The Gambia and The Bahamas.

The mistake is often made when a place is named after a river (Congo), desert region (Sudan), or group of islands (Seychelles). If Thames, Sahara or Hebrides became country names, we would likely make a similar mistake.

Netherlands means "lower countries" and Ukraine means "borderland" or "land by the side" in the local languages, so adding the definite article isn't completely mistaken (the lower countries, the borderland), but technically speaking the English habit of adding "the" before place names is one made in error.

Shrewsbury, Budapest and Ely

We may roll our eyes when Americans call Edinburgh Edin-Burrow and Glastonbury Glaston-berry but there are plenty of place names that Brits frequently get wrong, including towns close to home.

Shrewsbury, for one, is frequently pronounced Shrow-sbury by southerners and people who aren't from the market town. But in a Shropshire Star poll, 1000 online readers voted overwhelmingly in favour of Shroo-sbury as the correct pronunciation, by a margin of 81 per cent.

There are other towns that have been known to cause confusion. Ely is actually ee-lee, Islay is eye-la and some pedants will tell you that Budapest should be pronounced Budapesht. We'll leave that one for the residents of Magyarország to explain.

London's misnamed landmarks

There are a number of places in London that we've been calling by the wrong name. Most purveyors of pub quiz knowledge are aware that Big Ben is not the tall clocktower in Westminster, but rather the bell in the clock. The correct name for the tower is "Elizabeth Tower", crowned in 2012 to mark Queen Elizabeth II's diamond jubilee.

Staines and Tunbridge Wells

Rather than changing its name to something that doesn't remind us of an unfortunate spillage, local borough councillors convened in December 2011 and voted to change the Surrey town's name to Staines-upon-Thames by a margin of 25 votes to 4. A bid, allegedly, to distance the town from any associations with Sacha Baron Cohen's fictional character Ali G.

There are other places in the United Kingdom that have tweaked their name. Leamington Spa was given the title 'Royal' in 1838, with Tunbridge Wells being crowned Royal Tunbridge Wells in 1909 by King Edward VII. In 2011, Wootton Basset became the first town in more than 100 years to get the royal seal of approval.

The Telegraph, London

See also: It's not 'Bang-kok' - the 22 place names you're probably pronouncing incorrectly

See also: Ten things most travellers are doing wrong