History Main / AirstripOne

* ''Film/{{District9}}'' has the eponymous ghetto where the aliens are forced to live. In the epilogue it's shown that they've been moved to (larger and nicer, but still segregated) District 10, but it's never made clear exactly what the districts are or where the first eight are. It can be assumed that the whole city, assuming the human parts, is divided into administrative districts, but the alien area is the only one referred to by just its number.

** The city of Hanyang or Hanseong was renamed Keijou (Gyeongseong in Korean) after the [[UsefulNotes/{{NorthKorea}} annexation of]] [[UsefulNotes/{{SouthKorea}} Korea]] by Imperial Japan, which just ment "Capital City", as it was the seat of the colonial government at the time. It is ironic that after independence, the South renamed the capital city "UsefulNotes/{{Seoul}}", which was a Korean word that ment exactly the same thing.

* In ''Megiddo: The Omega Code 2'', [[BigBad Stone Alexander]] becomes the head of European Union and quickly turns it into a OneWorldOrder, separating the world into zones. He pressures the US to join this new global community, consistently calling it the North American Zone, which infuriates the President.

* In ''Literature/MistbornTheOriginalTrilogy'', regions conquered by the [[EvilOverlord Lord Ruler]] get renamed after their location relative to the capital, Luthadel and it's surrounding areas, the "Central Dominance" - the four main surrounding "Dominances" (provinces) are named for the four cardinal directions, while those farther away are given names to suggest their distance ("Farmost Dominance", "Remote Dominance"). Most have been subdued so long the people no longer remember the names of the nations that were once there. The only exception is the Terris Dominance, which bears the name of the region's original nation for reasons no one quite understands. [[spoiler: It's because the Lord Ruler was originally a Terrisman]].

* Italy under the House of Savoy was a serial offender:
** In the lead-up to the unification of Italy, the government of the then-Kingdom of Sardinia ordered the Italianization of the local names in the island of Sardinia in the (vain) effort of bringing the island population under full control. As the bureaucrats assigned to the job couldn't speak the local dialect often the results were less than optimal (''Golfu di li Ranci'', meaning "Crabs Gulf", was renamed ''Golfo degli Aranci'', or Golfo Aranci for short, meaning "''Orange Trees'' Gulf", for example).
** When Italy conquered a collection of states on the Red Sea coast they named it ''Colonia [[{{UsefulNotes/Eritrea}} Eritrea]]'', a pastiche of Italian and Ancient Greek words that can be translated as "Colony on the Red Sea" (the Eritreans kept the name because they had liked the Italian government, especially when compared with the Ethiopian one that succeeded it).
** Under Italian control, the formerly Ottoman territories of Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan were renamed ''Colonia della [[{{UsefulNotes/Libya}} Libya]]'' in 1934 after the ancient name for the area that had been used as an informal nickname for years (the name was kept after independence for lack of a better name).
** Upon conquering Ethiopia, the Italians merged it with Eritrea and Italian Somaliland and renamed the whole territory Italian East Africa.

* Frieza in ''Manga/DragonBall'' named all the planets he conquered "[[{{Egopolis}} Planet Frieza]] #(insert number here)"

* When today's Namibia was a German colony it was known as German South-West Africa; when it became a Mandate administered by South Africa, it became South-West Africa, much as South Africa is still today.

** Plus, the numbering doesn't follow any constitent scheme, and if a district becomes so redrawn its geography is warped, well, you can just rename it to fit the new boundaries.

** When Italy conquered a collection of states on the Red Sea coast they named it ''Colonia UsefulNotes/Eritrea'', a pastiche of Italian and Ancient Greek words that can be translated as "Colony on the Red Sea" (the Eritreans kept the name because they had liked the Italian government, especially when compared with the Ethiopian one that succeeded it).
** Under Italian control, the formerly Ottoman territories of Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan were renamed ''Colonia della UsefulNotes/Libya'' in 1934 after the ancient name for the area that had been used as an informal nickname for years (the name was kept after independence for lack of a better name).

** In the lead-up to the unification of Italy, the government of the then-Kingdom of Sardinia ordered the Italianization of the local names in the island of Sardinia in the (vain) effort of bringing the island population under full control. As the bureaucrats assigned to the job couldn't speak the local dialect often the results were less than optimal (''Golfu di li Ranci'', meaning "Crabs Gulf", was renamed ''Golfo degli Aranci'', meaning "''Orange Trees'' Gulf", for example).

* A lighter example is how the U.S. congressional district names go along the lines of [State]'s [Number] Congressional District - in contrast to the U.K., the country it descended from, which gives each of its 650 parliamentary constituencies unique names. You might think this is the districts are often significantly redrawn after each decennial Census. However, it is quite possible, especially with computers, to draw districts with largely consistent boundaries, as the British do. The real reason for this is because most districts in the US are so gerrymandered that giving an accurate geographic name would be nigh-impossible. Some Americans actually advocate a switch to the named-district system in order to make the gerrymandering more obvious and hopefully discourage it.

* Also in the United States: Sometimes, people will refer to their home and the surrounding area by its three-digit telephone [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_code#Area_code area code]] -- usually in big cities, where several codes may be used in the same general region.

* Nepal's latest Constitution went into effect in 2015, dividing the country into seven provinces. As their boundaries were drawn up based on logistical and political convenience rather than historical significance or culture, these provinces only have numbers, not names.

** "Zone 1" [[spoiler:Central London; a reference to the innermost fare zone of the London Underground, but commonly used in other contexts.]]

* In the ''Literature/DoctorWhoNewAdventures'', the Earth Empire has renamed all Earth's cities "Spaceports". ''Original Sin'' is mostly set in Spaceport 5 Overcity, which seems to be London.

* ''VideoGame/{{Half-Life 2}}'' takes place in a coastal city in Eastern Europe (as evidenced by the architecture and abundance of Cyrillic script), known only as City 17. A City 14 is also mentioned by a passer-by.

* After Nazi Germany conquered Poland in 1939, the area which was not annexed outright by Germany or taken by the Soviet Union was called the ''Generalgouvernment'' (General Government) to deny the Poles there an identity, and many references to Poland were deliberately suppressed.[[note]]The full name was "General Government of the occupied Polish territories", but this version was rarely used and completely phased out in 1941. However, Polish slave labourers in Germany were forced to wear a diamond-shaped patch with the letter "P".[[/note]] They were generally more inventive elsewhere, naming conquered territories after things like local rivers and similar.

* In ''Literature/MistbornTheOriginalTrilogy'', regions conquered by the [[EvilOverlord Lord Ruler]] get renamed after their location relative to the capital, Luthadel - the four main "Dominances" (provinces) are named for the four cardinal directions, while those farther away are given names to suggest their distance ("Farmost Dominance", "Remote Dominance"). Most have been subdued so long the people no longer remember the names of the nations that were once there. The only exception is the Terris Dominance, which bears the name of the region's original nation for reasons no one quite understands. [[spoiler: It's because the Lord Ruler was originally a Terrisman]].

->''Even the names of the countries, and their shapes on the map, had been different. Airstrip One, for instance, had not been so called in those days: it had been called England or Britain, though London, he felt fairly certain, had always been called London.''

* [[Manga/DragonBall Frieza]] named all the planets he conquered "[[EgoPolis Planet Frieza]] #(insert number here)"

* The [[ImperialJapan Imperial Japanese]] had a policy of designating conquered peoples by numbers, which coincidentally served as inspiration for Britannia's naming system in ''Anime/CodeGeass.''

* Under the control of white-minority-dominated South Africa, the current Namibia was more or less considered an addendum to the original and called [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South-West_Africa South-West Africa]].
** Subverted in that this no more than a continuation of the territory's name before it became a Mandate administered by South Africa: German South-West Africa.

* A lighter example is how the U.S. congressional district names go along the lines of [State]'s [Number] Congressional District - in contrast to the U.K., the country it descended from, which gives each of its 650 parliamentary constituencies unique names.
** You might think this is a matter of pragmatism--after all, the districts are often significantly redrawn when the decennial Census requires a redistribution of seats among the states. However, it is quite possible--especially today, what with computers--to draw districts with largely consistent boundaries--as that's what the British do. The real reason for this is because most districts in the US are so gerrymandered that giving an accurate geographic name would be nigh-impossible. Some Americans actually advocate a switch to the named-district system in order to make the gerrymandering more obvious and hopefully therefore discourage it.

* After Nazi Germany conquered Poland in 1939, they labeled that part of it which was not annexed outright by Germany or the Soviet Union the ''Generalgouvernment'' (General Government) to deny the Poles there an identity, and many references to Poland was deliberately suppressed.[[note]]The full name was "General Government of the occupied Polish territories", but this version was rarely used and completely phased out in 1941. However, Polish slave labourers in Germany were forced to wear a diamond-shaped patch with the letter "P".[[/note]] They were generally more inventive elsewhere, naming conquered territories after things like local rivers and similar.

* The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, possibly the TropeMaker. When the state was being created in 1922, a name of "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of Europe and Asia" was considered, but was ultimately rejected for including specific geographic references. It was believed that a world revolution was inevitable, and the USSR would constantly expand to all continents; thus, any mention of specific cultures or places in the state's name was deemed undesirable.