Countries and Points of the Compass:
A puzzle from Yefim Somin (yes relation to the coconspirator) -- name three countries whose names are based on the points of the compass, but whose English names do not have the point of the compass as a word in the country name. (East Timor and North Korea, for instance, wouldn't work.)
The Chinese name for China is "Zhongguo" which means "Central Nation". Does the axis count as a point of the compass?
This is particularly confusing, since everyone knows China is in the far east, not the central area.
Not entirely. Traditionally, port is always passed around the table to the left (ensuring that everyone gets his shot at the bottle), so the English use of 'port' for 'left' may derive from the drink which derives from the country....
Although "sud" does translate as "south" in French, Sudan is derived from the Arabic "Al-Sudan", and translates as "the black land" or "land of the black"
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=north
Estonia is tempting, but Aestii were mentioned already by Tacitus, and that's not a Latin word for East.
There are plenty of fun names meeting the requirements for places other than countries, which brings the following branch puzzle: which names of two cities in the same country mean Northern Capital and Southern Capital?
Incidentally, both the wine and the country were named after a city: Oporto (formerly known as Portucale - Portus Cale - Port of Gaia)
True, it does come from the original name of Banda Oriental because it's on the eastern shore of La Plata with respect to Argentina and its citizens are still occasionally called Orientales, especially by Argentines. But it's an explicit separate word with the same meaning in English, so it goes together with South Africa (there is of course no country called North Africa).
But of course. It's a bit unfair though to answer this question from China :-) As to literal and basic names, I think China has no monopoly on this. One might start with all the Westports, Eastports, Southports and Northwest and Southeast Harbors of New England. Now, Vestmannaeyjar (the islands of western people - meaning the Irish), is a bit less basic.
It doesn't.
Port is derived from starboard (in Russian that's even better to see, as there the word is starport I believe), which is an English spelling of the Dutch word stuurboord.
That's the side of a ship or boad where the steering wheel (stuurwiel in Dutch) is located.
"Boord" simply means the "side" of a ship. Mispronounced in English you can get either "port" or "board" depending on the level of inebriation of the sailors involved.
The Russian word is actually shtirbort, which does not work to confirm this theory (the final t simply reflects the lack of vocalization of consonant endings typical of Russian and is phonetically spelled for a word borrowed most likely through German). Incidentally, starboard is derived from the Middle English sterbord and means the right board not the left board.
Anatolia is the place where the sun rises (anatole in Greek).
Naturally this was called the "steering oar", or perhaps just "steer oar", in whatever languages the seamen used. In whichever one finally came to contribute the term to modern English, "oar" was "bord", or something similar. Their word for "steer" or "steering" was closely related to the modern word, e.g. "ster", making it a "sterbord". This came to mean that side of the ship as well as the object itself. When "sterbords" were replaced with rudders, the term survived as a direction. Through many changes in spelling and pronunciation, it came down to us as "starboard". And it means the right side of the ship, when facing forward. (Sailors are always very insistent about that precise definition; they may be facing any direction while working, and mixing up directions could be fatal to the ship.)
The opposite direction was once called "larboard" (I've no idea of the derivation), but that was apt to be misunderstood when shouted across the deck, so eventually they found another word. You wouldn't want to bang your steering gear up against the dock, so the left side of the ship came to be the side used for docking - and it still is usually, even though the rudder has been amidships for about six centuries. So the left side when facing forward became the "port" side.
"Port" is derived from Oporto, in Portugal, which was a very important harbor to the English. If you sail a ship south from England, intending to enter the Mediterranean Sea through Gibraltar, somewhere near Oporto is the earliest landfall that doesn't take you out of your way. With steamships with radar, gyrocompasses, and GPS it's a short trip and not much of a navigational challenge, but it could be difficult for sailing ships. So the early navigators would aim to sight land near Oporto for a navigational check, and also stop to trade, take shore leave, or do some ship repairs. On the return trip, they'd stop at Oporto to prepare for the voyage across the open ocean. Ships were bringing tin from the British Isles to the Mediterranean by that route since before the Romans and Carthaginians fought over Iberia, and ships continued to pass back and forth through Roman rule, the Anglo-Saxon and Norman conquests, the centuries of Christian-Muslim war in Iberia, and so on to the present day.