Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu:
The place where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, who
slid, climbed and swallowed mountains, known as 'landeater,' played his flute to
his loved one.
— definition of place name, see cited references
A locale in New Zealand, more particularly a hill in Southern Hawkes Bay on
the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand. The hill is about 1,000 feet
in height. A sign atop this hill gives the place name and an explanation.
The locals call it "Taumata," and swear that the name was not enhanced by
adding "the man with the big knees," merely for the purposes of beating the Welsh
in the competition for the longest place name: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyll-llantysiliogogogoch.
For fun, plug it into AT&T Labs' Text To Speech Generator at
http://public.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php.
In10se brought it to my attention that there is, technically, indeed a place name that's longer in his writeup Longest Names. the protocol name for Bangkok, Thailand, when spoken by a Thai who chooses to use the complete name, is the longest place name on earth. It isn't in common use, however.
SOURCES:
"Longest Place Name," by Jen Longshaw, The Kiwi Herald
http://www.kiwiherald.com/LongestPlaceName.html (Accessed 8/22/07)
Web of Linguistica Fun
http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/rbeard/name.html (Accessed 8/22/07)
http://digg.com/design/Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu_Hill_pic
(Accessed 8/22/07)
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