Is There a Country That Starts With X? Not in the English Language

There are currently no sovereign states whose names begin with the letter X in English. In fact, English doesn't have any countries that end with X either.

This unusual gap in the alphabet is a feature of the English names of sovereign states. Many country names come from Latin, Germanic, and Celtic words that evolved over centuries. Those language families rarely used X as a starting sound in geographic names.

Because English borrowed and adapted many names from these older languages, the pattern carried over. As a result, none of today's country names begin with X.

Even though no country starts with X, a few countries contain the letter in their names. Only two countries include the letter anywhere in their English spelling: Mexico and Luxembourg.

These names come from different language traditions. Mexico traces its name to the Nahuatl language of central Mexico, while Luxembourg comes from Germanic roots in Europe.

The situation changes when you look at other Romance languages such as Catalan and Galician. In these languages, several country names begin with the letter X even though their English versions start with different letters.

For example, the Catalan language spells China as Xina and Chile as Xile. Catalan developed from Vulgar Latin and shares characteristics with other Romance languages spoken in places such as Spain, France and Italy.

The Galician language, spoken in Galicia in northwestern Spain, also uses X for several country names. Examples include Xamaica for Jamaica, Xapón for Japan, Xeorxia for Georgia, Xibutí for Djibouti, and Xordania for Jordan.

These examples show how the same countries can appear under different first letters depending on the language used.

While no modern countries begin with X, many cities do. China in particular has numerous city names that start with this letter when written in the Romanized Pinyin system. Examples include Xi'an, Xiamen, Xinxiang, and Xining.

Other cities around the world with X at the beginning of their names include Xalapa in Mexico and Xai-Xai in Mozambique.

The presence of X in many city names and historical states shows how writing systems influence geography. Romanization systems used for languages such as Chinese often rely on the letter to represent specific sounds.

Because of that, the letter X appears regularly in the names of cities, regions, and historical states even though it never appears as the first letter of a modern country's name.

We created this article in conjunction with AI technology, then made sure it was fact-checked and edited by a HowStuffWorks editor.