Would 동경 and 북경 be commonly understood as ways of saying 'Tokyo' and 'Beijing'?

Question

As I understand it, 동경 and 북경 are the Korean pronunciations of the 한국어 forms of 'Tokyo' and 'Beijing'. However, the transliterations from English - 도쿄 and 베이징 - seem more common. My question: are 동경 and 북경 commonly understood to mean 'Tokyo' and 'Beijing'? Sub questions: - Are '동경' and '북경' older versions that are falling out of use? - If '도쿄' and '베이징' are more common, why have these versions caught on, given that '동경' and '북경' have a clearer semantic connection to the underlying characters?

Answer 1

Others explained it well. One thing I want to add is that 동경/북경 were more commonly used for older generation. These days 도쿄/베이징 are used among younger generation.

Some of the same examples off of my head are

불란서 - 프랑스

나성 - 로스엔젤레스

Answer 2

'도쿄' and '베이징' are based on pronunciations in Japanese and Chinese, respectively. 동경 and 북경 are words based on Chinese characters.

동경 (東京 in Chinese Characters) means "East Capital"

북경 (北京 in Chinese Characters) means "North Capital"

Korean speakers will know both pronunciations of each city.