[hiroshi3110]

As a Japanese, first we MUST stop pronounce Chinese names, both place and person, in Japanese on-yomi rule. e.g. Beijing(北京) is called "Pekin". Xi Jinping (習近平) is Shu Kinpei. It always confuse me when first heard those name in English.

[ahartmetz]

So that might be why Beijing is called Peking in German... Although the (generally closer to original pronunciation) English romanizations of some Chinese names are becoming more common.

[Double_a_92]

It's called ~"Peking" in most European languages.

[7FE1CCE3]

Most of Europe probably got it from France, who used the Cantonese pronunciation: bāk-gīng

[rswail]

The capital city of China is called "Beijing" in Mandarin and "Pekin" in Cantonese (as I understand it).

The Western world's engagement with China was via Hong Kong and Shanghai, where Cantonese is the dialect.

[barry-cotter]

Why? You’re speaking Japanese, not Chinese, and all Chinese characters have onyomi. It’s like saying English speakers should call Germany Deutschland.

[apexalpha]

Dutch here, due to historical trade relations we also still use Peking!

[7FE1CCE3]

That's how they pronounced the name of the city in southern China, which is where the trade started.

http://cantonese.org/search.php?q=北京