With the news that the Le Touquet-Paris-Plage International Airport in France is set to change its name to add ‘Elizabeth II’ in honour of the late queen, we started looking into other places and things named after Queen Elizabeth II.
While the French airport is the only airport named after her, Queen Elizabeth II lends her name to The Queen’s Terminal at London Heathrow.
She also lends her name to several hospitals and medical centres, including four in Australia, seven in Canada, and six in the United Kingdom.
In Valparaíso, Chile, patients can be treated at the Centro de Salud Familiar Reina Isabel II, while in Maseru, Lesotho, the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital also treats people.
In the Bahamas, residents can visit the Queen Elizabeth Sports Centre; in Edmonton, Alberta, there’s the Queen Elizabeth II Planetarium. Vancouver, British Columbia, boasts the Queen Elizabeth Theatre and Montreal, the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, which is named as such because she ascended the throne while the hotel was still under construction.
In Regina, Saskatchewan, there’s the Queen Elizabeth Power Station; in Fiji, the Queen Elizabeth Barracks; in Sierra Leone, the Queen Elizabeth II Quay; and in Eastern Cape, South Africa, the Princess Elizabeth Graving Dock.
In Tauranga, New Zealand, there’s the Queen Elizabeth Youth Centre & Memorial Hall, and in Christchurch, the Queen Elizabeth Park. In Australia, the Queen Elizabeth II Courts of Law administer justice in Brisbane. Paris is home to the Marché aux fleurs Reine-Elizabeth-II, a flower market renamed in her honour following an official visit in 2014.
In Ibadan, Nigeria, students learn at the Queen Elizabeth II Hall University, and in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, there’s the Queen Elizabeth II Library at the Memorial University of Newfoundland.
In the United Kingdom, buildings named after Queen Elizabeth II include the Elizabeth Tower—where Big Ben is housed—and the Queen’s Theatre in Hornchurch.
There’s the Queen Elizbeth Hall, the Queen Elizabeth II Dock in Merseyside, the Queen Elizabeth II Law Courts in Liverpool, and the Queen Elizabeth II Reservoir in Surrey.
In honour of her many jubilees, some buildings in the UK lend their name to those commemorations, like the Sapphire Jubilee Community Centre in Romford—the only place named after a jubilee never publicly celebrated, marking 65 years on the throne in 2017—and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Leisure Park in Leicester.
Many schools are named in Queen Elizabeth II’s honour, including the Princess Elizabeth Junior School For Deaf Children in Victoria, Australia; the Queen Elizabeth School for The Blind in Johor, Malaysia; and no fewer than 19 schools in Canada named either ‘Queen Elizabeth’ or ‘Princess Elizabeth.’
Halifax, Nova Scotia’s Public Gardens, renamed one of its walkways The Queen Elizabeth II Walkway to mark her being the longest-reigning British monarch. A former ocean liner was named the Queen Elizabeth 2 in her honour, though it stopped sailing in 2008.
Four roses are officially named for Queen Elizabeth: her namesake rose is a pink floribunda rose created in 1953; and jubilee roses for her Silver Jubilee in 1977, her Ruby Jubilee in 1992 (which she did not publicly celebrate) and her Platinum Jubilee in 2022 were developed.
Food items named for Queen Elizabeth II include the now-staple Coronation Chicken, a chicken curry dish created especially for her coronation in 1953. King Charles III followed suit in 2023 with his own special coronation recipe: coronation quiche.
There’s also Queen Elizabeth Cake, a Canadian-made dessert that many believe may have been invented for the coronation (though there are reports that it was made earlier, in 1939, to mark the visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to Canada).
The Elizabeth Sword is a specially-crafted sword that belongs with the Honours of Scotland, first presented to King Charles III in July 2023.
Many awards and prizes are named after Queen Elizabeth II, including the Elizabeth Cross, which is granted posthumously to people killed in terrorist attacks; several awards for business and enterprise in the United Kingdom; and many for horseracing.
In Australia, there’s the Queen Elizabeth Stakes (ATC) at Randwick Racecourse in Sydney and the Queen Elizabeth Stakes (VRC) at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne.
At the Kentucky Derby, there’s the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup Stakes, and Japan, Hong Kong, India, and Malaysia all host their own Queen Elizabeth II Cup.
In England, there’s the Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup, the Princess Elizabeth Stakes, the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, and the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes.
This isn’t a complete list of places and things named after the late queen, but it’s a start to show how wide-ranging her influence was around the world, in Commonwealth realms and territories, and in unrelated countries as well.
The UK government recently announced that the use of the name Queen Elizabeth II will be severely restricted for any business wanting to use her name in memorials; it will be decided by a committee after meeting strict regulations.
