Among the 13 abbreviations for cities in Jiangsu Province, Nanjing stands out. Neither of the characters, “Nan” (南; south) or “Jing” (京; capital), are employed to abbreviate our City’s name. So why did we go with “Ning” (宁)? Could it also not be abbreviated as “Nan” or “Jing”?
在江苏省13个城市的缩写中，南京脱颖而出。 这两个字符，“南”（南；南）或“京”（首都）都没有用来缩写我们城市的名字。 那么我们为什么要选择“宁”（宁）呢？ 也可以缩写为“Nan”或“Jing”吗？
The “Ning” in question comes from our City’s District of Jiangning (江宁), since it is also a former name of Nanjing.
有问题的“宁”来自我们城市的江宁区，因为它也是南京的旧名。
So while that explains that, in theory, Nanjing could be abbreviated as “Nan”. Generally speaking, the abbreviation of a Chinese city is usually the first character of its name. Looking at our Province as an example, the cities of Suzhou, Changzhou, Zhenjiang, Yangzhou, Taizhou, Yancheng, Lianyungang, Huai’an, Suqian and Xuzhou all follow this standard.
因此，虽然这解释了，但理论上，南京可以缩写为“南”。 一般来说，中国城市的缩写通常是其名称的第一个字符。 以我省为例，苏州、常州、镇江、扬州、台州、盐城、连云港、淮安、宿迁和徐州等城市都遵循这一标准。
Nanjing, Wuxi and Nantong are the exceptions to the rule. The case of Nanjing and Nantong is the same; the four directional terms; north, south, east and west; are not suitable as city abbreviations. Therefore, the abbreviations for cities such as Beijing, Nanning, Nanchang, Xi’an and Dongguan do not employ their initial characters.
南京、无锡和南通是规则的例外。 南京和南通的情况是一样的；四个方向术语；北、南、东、西；不适合作为城市缩写。 因此，北京、南宁、南昌、西安和东莞等城市的缩写不使用首字母。
However, we often see that Nanjing Library is abbreviated as “Nan Tu”, Nanjing Museum is abbreviated as “Nan Bo”, Nanjing University is called “Nan Da” and Nanjing University of Astronautics & Aeronautics is “Nan Hang”.
然而，我们经常看到南京图书馆缩写为“南图”，南京博物馆缩写为“南博”，南京大学简称“南达”，南京航天大学简称“南航”。
Retaining the “Nan” follows the general rules for abbreviating the names of institutions in China; use the first and third characters of the full name.
保留“Nan”遵循中国机构名称缩写的一般规则；使用全名的第一个和第三个字符。
So what’s a city to do when the first character of its name is not suitable as an abbreviation? Easy; use the second one. Both Wuxi and Nantong adopt such a simple solution. But for Nanjing, this still doesn’t work. With it meaning, “capital”, “Jing” can only be used for Beijing.
那么，当一个城市的名字的第一个字符不适合作为缩写时，该怎么办呢？ 简单；使用第二个。 无锡和南通都采用了如此简单的解决方案。 但對於南京來說，這仍然行不通。 这意味着，“首都”和“京”只能用于北京。
In the past of course, Nanjing was the capital of China, and at that time, it was indeed abbreviated as “Jing”, in something of a collision between history and linguistics.
当然，在过去，南京是中国的首都，当时，它确实被缩写为“京”，这是历史和语言学之间的碰撞。
To use a working example, when we refer to the “Beijing-Shanghai Railway” (京沪铁路), we need to be sure we are not talking about pre 1949. Were we, the same four characters would be the “Nanjing-Shanghai Railway”.
用一個工作的例子，當我們提到「京滬鐵路」時，我們需要確定我們不是在談論1949年之前。 如果是我们，同样的四个角色将是“南京-上海铁路”。
Just to really muddy the waters, there is however, one special instance when Nanjing is indeed abbreviated as “Nan”.
然而，为了真正混淆水，有一个特殊的例子，南京确实被缩写为“南”。
That would be when we refer to it as part of a group of cities. Hence, the top-tier cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen are abbreviated by using the first character of each city’s name (北上广深).
那就是当我们把它称为一组城市的一部分时。 因此，北京、上海、广州和深圳的顶级城市使用每个城市名称的第一个字符（北上广深）来缩写。
Were we to continue, the next tier down would be Wuhan, Hangzhou and Nanjing (武杭南), about the only time we see “Nan” employed as the abbreviation for Nanjing. And even that’s pretty rare.
如果我们继续下去，下一层将是武汉、杭州和南京（武杭南），这大约是我们唯一一次看到“南”被用作南京的缩写。 甚至那也很罕见。