The Chinese word "约翰内斯堡" is formed by phonetically transliterating the English name "Johannesburg" into characters that approximate its sounds: "约" for "Jo", "翰" for "han", "内" for "nes", "斯" for "s", and "堡" for "burg", with the character "堡" additionally conveying the meaning of "fortress" or "town" to indicate it is a place.