Ohh… I always thought it was because “Peking” is close to the Cantonese pronunciation of Beijing (bak-king) and the historical European trade routes were through HK and Guangzhou. Then after the Communists made Mandarin the main dialect, the spelling was changed to reflect the pinyin of the Mandarin pronunciation of the capital which is Beijing.
simplythere t1_j6gelqj wrote
Reply to comment by series_hybrid in ELI5: How do they come up with names for countries in foreign languages? by bentobam
Ohh… I always thought it was because “Peking” is close to the Cantonese pronunciation of Beijing (bak-king) and the historical European trade routes were through HK and Guangzhou. Then after the Communists made Mandarin the main dialect, the spelling was changed to reflect the pinyin of the Mandarin pronunciation of the capital which is Beijing.