Annapolis is a city in the United States. It is the capital of Maryland, so the state government sits there — the way Taipei is the capital here, even though it is not the biggest city in the country. Annapolis itself is not huge. People far away often know it for one thing: the United States Naval Academy is there. That is the school where the US trains officers for its navy, the part of the armed forces that works on ships. If an American says someone “went to Annapolis,” they often mean that navy school, not just the town. You say it uh-NAP-uh-lis, not AN-na-polis. The name is built like a “city” name: Anna plus polis, and polis is a Greek piece meaning city. It was named for a princess who later became Queen Anne of Britain. Long before that, the place had been called Anne Arundel’s Towne, after an English noblewoman, Anne Arundell — the county around the city still carries her name. Though actually, Annapolis is easy to mix with other American place names that start with Ann-; it is not Ann Arbor, and it is not a person’s surname.