[roenxi]

And the chaos of translation. It is fun to consider whether somewhere like Johannesburg should be called Johannesburg or Johnscity or YHWHisMercifulFortifiedPlace or what in English. The standard is obviously to keep the local term and pronunciation, but then apply that logic to languages with different scripts and nothing really makes sense in a satisfying way because mapmakers can't avoid some amount of translation. It is a muddle of conventions.

[Freak_NL]

There is no chaos there. When you label something on a map, you never translate any of the names. What you do, is use the exonyms which already exist. That is, local names which may have been literally translated at some point, or might simply have changed to align with local orthography and pronunciation, and which have become common place and accepted.

Like encyclopaedia, most reliable real-world maps document what it is, not what the author thinks it should be (obviously this is a possible use of maps; see China's nine-dash-line bullshit). So you wouldn't be making your own translations. At most, you would transliterate names in scripts not readily understood by your target audience.