This study examined the factors of place name changes inChina from the perspective of sociolinguistics. The place namechange factors were diachronically review by not differentiatingtheir corresponding period from ancient time to modern times.Generally, China’s place naming has two principles – physicalgeographical factors, and human geographical factors. In thisstudy, the human geographical factors were mainly looked at bydividing them further into political diplomatic factors andsociocultural factors. First of all, as for political diplomaticfactors, the country has been through name changes duringCultural Revolution, due to ethnic minority policies and due toforeign relationship, military activity and migration. Secondly,sociocultural factor were found to be place name changes toavoid taboo language, to seek sophisticated naming, caused bycontact with different peoples and due to historic and culturalpreservation.