Pars pro toto (, ), , is a figure of speech where the name of a portion of an object, place, or concept is used or taken to represent its entirety. It is distinct from a merism, which is a reference to a whole by an enumeration of parts; metonymy, where an object, place, or concept is called by something or some place associated with it; or synecdoche, which can refer both to pars pro toto and its inverse: the whole representing a part. In the context of language, pars pro toto means that something is named after a part or subset of it, or after a limited characteristic, which in itself is not necessarily representative of the whole. For example, "glasses" is a pars pro toto name for something that consists of more than literally just two pieces of glass (the frame, nosebridge, temples, etc. as well as the lenses). Pars pro toto usage is especially common in political geography, with examples including "Russia" or "Russians", used to refer to the entire former Russian Empire or former Soviet Union or its people; "Holland" for the Netherlands; and, particularly in languages other than English, using the translation of "England" in that language to refer to Great Britain or the United Kingdom. Among English-speakers, "Britain" is a common pars pro toto shorthand for the United Kingdom. "Schweiz", Switzerland's name in German, comes from its central canton of Schwyz. The inverse of a pars pro toto is a totum pro parte, in which the whole is used to describe a part. The term synecdoche is used for both. Geography The most common example of a pars pro toto in geography is the use of the capital to refer to the country (often in order to refer to the country's government), such as Washington for the United States, Beijing for China, Moscow for Russia, Berlin for Germany, Tokyo for Japan, Paris for France, London or Westminster for the United Kingdom, Rome for Italy, etc. Certain place names are sometimes used as synecdoches to denote an area greater than that warranted by their strict meaning: "Antigua" for Antigua and Barbuda "Austria" for the former Austro-Hungarian Empire or the Habsburg-ruled lands "Baghdad" for Iraq "The Balkans" to include historically related parts of southeastern Europe as well as the Balkan Peninsula, or for the countries that made up the former Yugoslavia "Bohemia" for the former Czech