There’s lots of places around named New Xxxx where Xxxx is some other place, usually far away. New South Wales, for example, or Nova Scotia (the “New” doesn’t have to be in English).
Are there any of these New places that have a strong resemblance to the Old place? The only one I can think of is New Guinea, which I believe was named for its resemblance to the Guinea coast area of Africa.
You might say New Mexico, because it’s right next door to Mexico and of course things on one side of the border are just like things on the other side. That’s true, but when they named NM, Mexico was a much smaller area centered on Mexico City. Now there may be a resemblance between the area around Albuquerque and the area around Mexico City. I don’t know, so someone familiar with both will have to say.
Anyway, it seems to me that the vast majority of such places have no resemblance at all. The New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) are a tropical group of islands while the Hebrides are decidedly non-tropical. Ditto for New Caledonia and Old Caledonia (Scotland). I’ve never been to Zeeland, but I’d be surprised if it resembles New Zealand in any significant way.
You mentioned one yourself: Nova Scotia looks (reportedly) much like the Scottish highlands. I could see the resemblance (to pictures) when I visited Cape Breton Island.
Oh, I just thought of another one. New Kiruna is almost identical to the old Kiruna. Mainly because it’s a few miles up the road and contains the same old buildings, but still. http://www.wilhelmson.se/press.htm#ki
When you say “named NM” do you mean the initial colonial expansion into ‘Nuevo Mexico’, or do you mean ceding the eastern part of what is now New Mexico to the US (which I think was the first time the name was formally Anglicized, but I could be wrong about that)?
In regional New South Wales there was a town called Junee.
When the railway line was built the surveyors bypassed the town to avoid a incline. Undaunted, they moved Junee to the railway and the town that remained was renamed Old Junee. Apart from the tracks there’s not much difference between Junee and Old Junee.
In the dairying areas of northern Victoria there was a hamlet called Bamawn. Had a store and a sub-post office, a footy ground and a netball court. A couple of years later, on the next cross road about a mile away was established Bamawn Extension with near identical facilities. The communities competed fiercely for a few decades and then both were abandoned. All that exists now are two sign posts.
As for some of the other suggestions, I guess I didn’t make this clear in the OP. I’m mainly interested in New-places that are far away from the Old-place. How far is “far away”, I leave a bit open, but not just a few miles down the road.
Any old French stuff is not enough. Lots of stuff could be French stuff. I’m more interested in whether New Orleans resembles Orléans or not.
So far we have Scotland/Nova Scotia and England/New England.
