The English translations for Shanxi and Shaanxi are slightly different

I’ve learned a lot; even people from Shanxi have never heard of it. Thank you!

There is such a way of speaking; there are multiple A’s in Shaanxi

Currently, for the Pinyin spelling of “Shaanxi”, both “Shan*” and “Shaan*” are in use. The \"Great Dictionary of Chinese Place Names\" (1998), published by the Chinese Committee on Place Names, the Ministry of Education, and the **Publishing Bureau, as well as the \"Compendium of China’s Administrative Divisions\" (1999) issued by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, both use \"Shan\"*” ； **The catalog index of the “List of Place Names of the People’s Republic of China” compiled by the Surveying and Mapping Bureau uses “Shaan*”. **The \"Xinhua Spelling Dictionary\" written by Mr. Yin Binyong, an expert in Chinese Pinyin from the Institute of Language Application under the Language Commission and one of the drafters of the \"Basic Rules for Correct Pinyin Usage,\" uses \"Shaan*\" as the Pinyin spelling for \"Shaanxi.\" It also states that this spelling is used solely to distinguish between provincial administrative regions and should not be applied in other contexts. “As a technical processing method, “Shaan*” has never been elevated to an international standard and **norm** in any legal form regarding the Roman alphabet spelling of “Shaanxi”. In 1977, the Third United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names adopted a resolution on \"adopting Pinyin as the international standard for the Romanization of Chinese place names.\" The spelling of Chinese Pinyin must follow China’s official Roman alphabet-based Pinyin system – the ‘Chinese Pinyin Scheme’. However, the spelling “Shaan*” clearly violates the basic rules of this scheme. And now that such technical approaches have become an objective reality, **the various standards issued by the relevant authorities regarding the Pinyin spelling of Chinese place names have failed to provide any specific or clear statements or regulations regarding the possibility of spelling ‘Shaanxi’ as ‘shaan*’ in order to distinguish it from ‘Shanxi’. This shows that **the relevant authorities and the academic community hold different views on this issue. The section on \"Phonetic Basis\" in the \"Rules for Spelling Chinese Place Names in Pinyin (Part Concerning Chinese Place Names)\\", which was jointly issued in 1984 by the Chinese Committee on Place Names, the Chinese Committee for Character Reform, and the **Surveying and Mapping Bureau**, stipulates that \"place names should be spelled according to the tones of Mandarin pronunciation.\" \"Special cases may not require tone marks,\" but no special rules are provided for the spelling of \"Shaan*.\" The supplementary provisions on tone marking in Part 10, \"Tone Marking\", of the \"Basic Rules of Chinese Pinyin Morphology\" issued in 1988 jointly by the **Education Commission** and the **Language and Writing Committee** state that, in addition to the tone-marking method using symbols as specified in the \"Chinese Pinyin Scheme\", numerical values or letters can also be used as temporary alternatives for tone marking depending on practical needs. Regrettably, the Basic Rules neither propose a clear and mature system for marking tones with letters, nor do they acknowledge “Shaan*” as an example. It can be said that the above two documents represent the current highest standards for the Pinyin spelling of place names in China. Thus, it is not difficult to see that although the spelling “Shaan*” is already used to a certain extent and with a certain frequency, it lacks a solid theoretical basis. It is particularly worth noting that in 1987, the Chinese Place Names Committee, the Ministry of Urban and Rural Construction and Environmental Protection, and the **Language and Writing Work Committee jointly issued a notice stating that old spelling systems such as the Wade-Giles system and foreign scripts should not be used in place name signs. It was clearly specified that both proper names and common names on such signs should be written using the Pinyin alphabet, and old spelling methods like Wade-Giles should not be employed. The so-called “old spelling systems” refer to the systems used for transcribing Chinese characters before the adoption of the Pinyin system; these include the Wade-Giles system, as well as other phonetic alphabets such as the National Romanization System. “Shaan*”, which follows the Romanization system for marking tones in the national language, also failed to be exempted from these rules as a special case in this document. The **standard that explicitly specifies the unique spelling of “Shaan*” is the 《Pinyin Spelling Rules for Chinese Book and Periodical Titles》 (GB3259－89); its clause 5.9 states that “certain place names may use special spellings approved by the Chinese Place Names Committee.” Shaanxi Daily Shaan* Ribao”. However, its scope of application is limited to the Pinyin spelling of Chinese book and journal titles, and it has no regulatory effect on the spelling in other areas such as place names; this is likely also an acknowledgment of the existing practice of using “Shaan* Ribao” in newspaper titles. Finally, it should be noted that “Shan*” and “Shaan*” are not issues related to translation into English, but rather problems with the Pinyin spelling system – specifically, they relate to the Romanization of Chinese place names. These are Chinese place names written using Pinyin letters, and they can be used in various languages that use the Roman alphabet, such as English, French, German, Spanish, etc. Source: Baidu http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:uB__Cyva5kkJ:zhidao.baidu.com/question/12745836.html+%E9%99%95%E8%A5%BF+%E8%8B%B1%E6%96%87&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

It is also distinguished using Shan’* and Shan*. Shan’* -- Shaanxi Shan* -- Shanxi

I got it. Hoo, it’s funny. Shaan *--Shaanxi*--Shanxi

I really hadn’t noticed this issue before; it’s interesting!