Lots of inland American cities are named after the famous port city of China, Canton, which is formally known as Guangzhou.
I don’t know why it was such a popular pick back in the day, but I’m guessing it has to do with this:
The port of Guangzhou serves as a transportation hub. Guangzhou is also one of China’s three largest cities.[10] For a long time, it was the only Chinese port accessible to the Europeans
Canton and Cantonese is actually the english name derived from the Portuguese transliteration of the region when they first started ocean trading with China.
I checked and nah, most of them explicitly state China as the name origin and one of them is even close to another town called Nankin which was named after Nanjing lol.
Lots of inland American cities are named after the famous port city of China, Canton, which is formally known as Guangzhou.
I don’t know why it was such a popular pick back in the day, but I’m guessing it has to do with this:
Canton and Cantonese is actually the english name derived from the Portuguese transliteration of the region when they first started ocean trading with China.
Are we sure it doesn’t come from the word “canton” as in another word for “state”, e.g Swiss Cantons?
I checked and nah, most of them explicitly state China as the name origin and one of them is even close to another town called Nankin which was named after Nanjing lol.