List of Latin place names in Africa
This list includes African countries and regions that were part of the Roman Empire, or that were given Latin place names in historical references. Background. Until the Modern Era, Latin was the common language for scholarship and mapmaking. During the 19th and 20th centuries, German scholars in particular have made significant contributions to the study of historical place names, or "Ortsnamenkunde". These studies have, in turn, contributed to the study of genealogy. For genealogists and historians of pre-Modern Europe, knowing alternate names of places is vital to extracting information from both public  and private records. Even specialists in this field point out, however, that the information can be easily taken out of context, since there is a great deal of repetition of place names throughout Europe; reliance purely on apparent connections should therefore be tempered with valid historical methodology. Caveats and notes. Latin place names are not always exclusive to one place — for example, there were several Roman cities whose names began with "Colonia" and then a more descriptive term. During the Middle Ages, these were often shortened to just "Colonia". One of these, "Colonia Agrippinensis", retains the name today in the  form of Cologne. Early sources for Roman names show numerous variants and spellings of the Latin names. The modern canonical name is listed first. Sources are listed chronologically. In general, only the earliest source is shown for each name, although many of the names are recorded in more than one of the sources. Where the source differs in spelling, or has other alternatives, these are listed following the source. As an aid to searching, variants are spelled completely, and listed in most likely chronology. Superscripts indicate: References. In order of likely publication: List of Latin place names in Africa This