What is the smallest city in your country that everyone can still instantly recognise the name of? What is it famous for?
In the United States, I'd probably name Oregon City, the famous end of the Oregon Trail and the first city founded west of the Rocky Mountains during the pioneer era. Its population is only 37,000.
I’m in the US and I can’t say I’d heard of Oregon City before this post…
I thought the Oregon Trail was a pretty standard part of US history curriculum.
I too have never heard of Oregon City. I can only assume it's in Oregon. The only thing I remember about the Oregon Trail is that I died from dysentery every time I followed the trail.
It was popular, but I think most folks who played it remember dying of dysentery, not the cities 😆
We were taught about it, but most Americans don't view westward expansion with the same... Reverence? Notoriety?
Like, I remember learning about it across multiple grades, but... Oregon City being the final destination, that's not something I would probably remember a year or two later, nevermind a decade or more.
Not really, not in our school district anyways. They did allow us to play the game based on that on their ancient computers, but never really gave us historical context, nor were we required to play the game.
I didn't learn shit about it back then, and barely get it today. I'm 42 years old for reference.
Oregon trail, yes, Oregon city, no. I remember learning that it went from independence Missouri to the Willamette Valley. If I had to guess where I thought it ended, I would have said Portland.
But most of the world did not have the US education system. I'd say only some Americans have heard of Oregon City, and very few non Americans.
It is. But that's not saying much.
I may have had to keep a few of the waypoints of the trail in my head for, oh, a week or so, just long enough to scribble it on a history test. Then that information was immediately cleared out to make way for whatever other junk we had to temporarily memorize next chapter.
Only a vague, blurry notion that the Oregon Trail A) existed and B) was a trail to (presumably) somewhere in Oregon remains with me today. Oregon City is certainly not a part of that notion.
Not to shit on the Oregon Trail or Oregon City in particular, of course. I would be truly baffled to meet anyone that retained, in significant detail, even a tenth of what any grade school history class purportedly taught them.
For real. I'd think many more people could name Panama city in Florida. Famous spring break and vacation city every kid who's gone through college or listened to Van Halen knows of. Also has a population of less than 36,000 people.
Unfortunately, I would guess that school shooter locations are probably the most easily recognised in the US. Uvalde has a population of ~15,000, for instance.
Sandy Hook is ~9,000. You may not remember, but Alex Jones does.
Yeah Alex Jones can rot in hell
We remember.
OP said famous, not infamous.
💀
Ah yeah, I was going for instantly recognizable
Similar to how more people have heard of Lockerbie than any other Scottish town of 5000 people.
Not my country, but what immediately came to mind was one that has global name recognition, and minimal population: Chernobyl.
It used to have around 12,000 population, but now it's technically illegal to live nearby, and up to 150 people are estimated to live there today. It's famous for being toxically irradiated as a result of the worst nuclear disaster in human history
I think people really overestimate how much everybody knows about the US.
I'd say there's a large population that only know NYC, LA, and Chicago.
Used to be Dallas was pretty famous- Kennedy shooting, cheerleaders, and a titular TV show.
I'd say Salem, Massachusetts (pop just under 45k) is pretty famous thanks to the witch trials.
Not my experience, as a Canadian. I'm guessing Europe is a bit more ignorant, but they'll still know about the other big cities and basic regions like the South. In the third world you might be right. No clue about East Asia.
Gibraltar has a population of 32,000, which by some definitions is too small to be considered a city.
Gibraltar is a city?
I am American, so low bar, but there are dozens of us.
It’s a city, it’s a really big rock, it’s a maritime port, it’s the only wild monkey population in Europe, it’s a 2½ mi2 British Overseas Territory whose status is perennially contested by Spain.
For the US, I'd say a pretty strong contender is Woodstock, NY, with a population of around 6,000, and of course famous for the music festival of the same name (even though the actual festival was something like 60 miles away in Bethel)
A good number of these are examples where most people don't actually know that the name comes from a town. I feel like they shouldn't count.
This is probably the most iconic for sure.
Nokia, Finland, population 36,000. Cellphones, tyres, rubber boots, ...
I'd try Bodom, population 0, if other than cities are allowed.
Does it count if you know the thing it's known for but not that it's a place?
I actually used to own a cellphone and tyres from Nokia at the same time.
Schengen - the village in Luxembourg where the Schengen Agreement was signed. The population was 5196 in 2023 (appears to be the last census quoted on Wikipedia) and the "Schengen Area", covered by the agreement represents 450m people.
That's a great one!
I didn't even know there were multiple villages in Luxembourg. I kinda thought it was a city-state.
I thought so too before moving here, but there's two cities, and a lot of empty space (in the north in particular) with lots of towns and villages, it's not like Monaco or the Vatican City in that regard.
That being said, it's still all very close together, you can drive from the northern most point to the south in about 1.5-2 hours.
The funniest thing I've learned about the geography is that there is a North/South divide where people from either don't trust people from the other.
Ramstein, population ~5600
Famous for the Ramstein Air base, the bombing of the air base, the Ramstein air show disaster and the band named after all of that.
I went to school on base, grades 1-4, mid 1960s. My takeaway: planes with Ramjets!
Roswell, NM comes to mind. Tiny and yet most people will think of UFOs when they hear the name.
I was gonna say Albuquerque, because of the name itself, the weird Al song and Breaking Bad, but Roswell is way tinier.
don't forget being famous for wrong turns
Waco, TX for anyone around in the 90s
Paris. It's also a city in Texas.
I see you and raise, Las Vegas, NM.
https://blog.txfb-ins.com/texas-travel/european-cities-in-texas/ someone has mapped out the "European" Texas road trip.
Hmmm
We also have a Paris in Ontario in Canada .... nice place next to the water and it even has the Eiffel Tower (painted as a mural on a storefront)
On that note, Paris, Texas is a great movie.
Did anyone fix the roof in the one house in London, Tx yet?
Dildo, Newfoundland.
Not really though.
Off the top of my head I’d say places like Gander, Churchill, Iqaluit - places known maybe for their location as much as their people and unique situations?
Omg...i spent 4 hours in Gander one evening, so it took about 20 hours to go Dallas -> Chicago -> Gander-> Chicago.
“A week in Gander one day.”
Yellowknife has a population of 20,000. Is that considered small enough?
I’d say no in the context of the OP. That’s one of our major cities in our own way. And a territorial capital.
The smallest Canadian city that I'd think most people around the world might know about is Niagara Falls, although they might only know about the falls and not know that it's also a city.
Edit: I thought the question meant people around the world but I guess it could also mean just the people in your own country..
Banff is what I was looking for in this list (pop ~8300). Not many places in this country are 'acting Canadian' anymore.
Edit: I got it - my bet is Charlottetown, PEI, because those Anne of Green Gables books were wildly popular on the international market, and I imagine fans tried to find Avonlea on a map and learned that Charlottetown exists.
I'm probably still wrong, this is actually kind of a tough question.
Edit 2: Nah I change my mind, maybe Gimli, MB because the Gimli Glider incident did garner quite a bit of attention.
Charlottetown is a good answer actually. Bigger than I thought though, 40k people.
Nope
For France it's probably Vichy, infamously well known internationally for being the capital of the French pro-Nazi government during the Occupation. Only 25'000 inhabitants.
Also consider that Roquefort-sur-Soulzon, of cheese fame, has 528 inhabitants.
I didn't thought of that, you're right!
Even without considering cheese villages (somebody mentioned Roquefort, I was thinking of Gruyere, France clocking in at about 100 inhabitants), I believe Verdun would be just as known and is smaller at a population of around 17000.
Admittedly my WW2 history knowledge is quite lacking, but I don't recognise Vichy because of the war stuff.
But I do recognise Vichy! Because we have a sub-type of mineral water in Sweden that is named after Vichy, "Vichyvatten". Wikipedia tells me the original was from a spring near Vichy, hence the name.
The two facts are linked: Vichy was chosen as the new capital after the occupation of Paris because of the springs. There were a lot of hotels and means of communication because of the luxurious spas.
Mont Saint-Michel, pop. 25
Nice one, didn't think of that ! I suggested the one-letter town Y (population : 89), which is obviously much less well-known, but is also much smaller.
Edit : just realised, the airport city Roissy-en-France at under 3k inhabitants is a huge contender too that wasn't mentioned
Chamonix of also a good contender with a population of 9000 habitants
Wacken, Germany.
Population: 2110
Home to one of the biggest metal festivals in the world with something between 70k and 120k people. I think Tickets are limited to 70k currently but the whole area is bascially transformed for a week
What's more well known around the world, Wacken or Rammstein? Because Wacken is smaller than Ramstein and would be the better answer but my guess is that Rammstein are more known.
Rammstein is not a town though, Ramstein(-Miesenbach) is.
I think a good chunk of US american military folks are familiar with Ramstein air base, less so Ramstein-Miesenbach. Internationally I'd imagine even less of either.
Even plenty Rammstein (band) fans aren't familiar with the origin of the name, nor the town near the airbase :)
I'd comfortably take a bet that Wacken rings more bells around the globe.
I'm not from there, but who doesn't know the name of Scunthorpe?
It's a problem.
Chornobyl, Ukraine. "50 thousand people used to live here, now it's a ghost town"
There are many more ghost towns now, due to the war. Adviivka, Bakhmut and many others, some small, some relatively big. Everyone has heard of those small cities.
I was under the impression that Pripyat was the town?
Yeah, the town mentioned in the quote is, in fact, Pripyat, my bad. Still, Chornobyl is another Ghost town and the exclusion Zone is named after it, so it's the town people recognise more.
Pretty sure that quote refers to Prypiat. Chornobyl had around 14k people living at the moment of the evacuation, according to wikipedia
It might not count as a city but Nome Alaska has the Iditarod with only, 3700 people. Or maybe some famous battlefield, Gettysburg has 7100 people. A ski resort like Aspen could count with 7000. We all had to memorize state capitals so maybe somewhere like Montpelier, Vermont has more recognition but has 7800 people.
Jeez, I had no idea Aspen and Montpelier were so small.
Aspen has been experiencing a deep housing crisis for years. They have to bus in most of their workers from nearby towns because no one who has to work for a living can afford to live in Aspen. Now there's a worker shortage because no one can afford to live in the outlying towns either.
You can drive through Aspen in 5 min. It’s tiny.
Sturgis also has a population of around 7,000, and has a pretty significant cultural awareness because of its annual motorbiking event
In the US it must be Springfield because there's so fucking many of them that they named made a TV show after it.
Stupid sexy autocorrect.
named a TV show after it
The Springfields?
Okay, I spilled my coffee. I'll be giggling all day.
By population, and not land area, certain more remote geographic places are well known but have quite a low population. 'Everyone' is a high bar, but most adults in Australia would know the following places (ordered from smaller population but slightly less known to higher population):
I reckon Port Arthur is a solid contender with its low population of 251 (known for being the site of a mass shooting that led to significant changes in Australian gun laws). It is fading in name recognition as time goes on though, after all that was approaching 30 years ago and lots of people have been born since then.
My top pick however would be Bega with its population of 5013 and the name recognition the cheese factory has brought. It's hard to go past a name that's printed on cheese (and assorted other products now) in the vast majority of supermarkets across Australia, and they even export overseas to get a bit of international cachet.
Bega is sister city to Littleton, CO. A town famous for the Columbine school shooting in 1998.
As a non Australian, I didn't know wittenoom, but I'm pretty sure I know of it from the old videos of asbestos shoveling competitions that went around a few years back.
I think the smallest Australian town I know is oodnadatta, but I don't know why I know it. I also had to look up if "nullarbor" was a city, or just a place name, so idk if that counts.
I'm an Australian, and I also don't know why I know Oodnadatta! Probably it's just one of those words that sticks in the brain, and it comes up every so often because it is a key point between Adelaide and Darwin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oodnadatta (population 102)
Wittenoom, WA - population 0
I didn't instantly recognise the name, but I've heard the story.
Coober Pedy, SA - population 1437
This is a very solid one.
@gnu@lemmy.zip beat me to the punch with Port Arthur, and I think they've hit the nail on the head there. Although, as they note, maybe the name recognition isn't there for younger generations.
Here's some suggestions that haven't been made yet:
coober pedy was my best guess too!
If you mean people from my country.... All of them.
New Zealand only has like 10 actual cities. It is not some great feat of memory to know them all.
Matamata is really nice.
Agreed, but at fewer than 10k people, it is not exactly a city.
Going a little further north, I spent a lot of my teenage years in Athenree... Current population 920.. It has grown since I left.
What's your population threshold for city, here? Are there just a ton of rural people? It feels like a major country.
50k people
Looking at this list some are dubious. e.g. Hibicus Coast (#9) has been swallowed up by Auckland (#1), I would have called it a part of Auckland, much like Manakau City, which isn't on the list.
Lower Hutt (#6) and Upper Hutt (#18) are on the list but Petone is not, geographically they are part of the same long valley and can almost all be considered part of Wellington like Manakau City is part of Auckland.
But you also get places like Masterton (#28), feels city like, since it is the largest settlement in the region but really it is a big town, it takes up a huge area though. Mainly services the farming communities around it.
In the Netherlands is probably Giethoorn, the 'Venice of the North' which has many canals instead of roads and is very touristy. It has 2.900 inhabitants
iThe City of London might be one, it has a very small resident population, but I dont know how many people know that it is a separate city from London. It's famos for being chock full of c*nts most of the day.
It’s famos for being chock full of c*nts most of the day.
Also how it's eerily dead on the weekends.
In the UK it's got to be the City of London. Famous for being an ancient city established by the Romans and awash with history, now one of the world's biggest financial centers with a modern skyline of famously distinctive skyscrapers. It's home to some world-famous landmarks like Saint Paul's Cathedral and Tower Bridge, and has a population of about 10,000.
The City of London is not to be confused with London, London, London or London.
I guess the one that pretty much everyone knows in Germany is Buxtehude. It is being used as the poster child for a backwards town, far away from cities. Which is funny because neither is it backwards, remote or even very small. With a population of 40k it’s relatively large, compared to many other places in Germany, even just right next to Buxtehude. It is not far from Hamburg and its historic core is worth a visit. I think the name itself is the reason why it is being made fun of so much. Though there are so many other, much quirkier named towns in Germany but it somehow became Buxtehude.
Germany:
Bielefeld. Everyone recognizes the name, it's marked on all maps, officially it has a football club.
But in reality, it doesn't even exist.
we have a town called "Fucking" with only a few hundred people living there. the town sign gets stolen once a month
I thought they changed their name? Isn't it called "Fugging" now?
yeah it looks like it, I've searched for "bad fucking" on Google maps and it returned Fugging
In the UK and a city? Probably Liverpool and because of The Beatles.
A Town? Well it certainly used to be Lockerbie where Pan-Am flight 103 crashed after a terrorist bombing just before Christmas 1988. It was on it's way from London to New York.
Probably not known by the younger generations though.
I know Lockerbie. It came up a lot as Qaddafi went down.
Not a city as much as part of a city, but Coney Island is pretty well known. I was recently speaking to someone in Colombia and even they knew of it!
(I'm part of the sideshow cast there ☺️)
Username checks out?
I'm often introduced as a real life tiefling so yeah
I'm from Pakistan and I know it too, it appears in the movie Robot Dreams.
The village "Wacken" is well known in Germany because they hold one of the worlds largest anual Heavy-Metal festivals. They have a population of around 2000, the festival regularly attracts around 80,000 people.
Hallstatt - Austria
The city so beautiful that the Chinese copied it.
For Australia I would go with Snowtown for the bodies in barrels. Or maybe Kendall where William Tyrrell disappeared. Both towns are pretty small.
What do you consider small? A lot of people know Cupertino California because Apple are based there, but it's only got a population of 57k. It's arguably more recognizable than the closest major city (San Jose), which has a population of nearly 1 million.
San Jose metro area is enormous though. For example I'd consider Gilroy (which is famous for its garlic) as being completely separate from San Jose even though it's well within San Jose's metro area.
Yeah, no Tim, nobody's ever sung a song about getting to Cupertino
Regina, the city that rhymes with fun!
In Denmark it's probably Snave (No English Wikipedia page for it). Population is a whopping 211 people. It was popularized in a series of commercials for a Danish cellular carrier. The concept was so popular that there even was a movie. I haven't seen it, but the reviews seems to suggest it could be fun to watch... If you are drunk enough.
The word "snave" in Danish can somewhat be translated to snogging in English. Heavy kissing. Which has led to the city having massive problems with theft of their signs.
Back when I was in Russia I'd say it'd be Suzdal, famous for the density of churches and other traditional architecture; or Tarusa, known for that one song that everyone seems to know a couple of lines from, Gorodok (here is a random rendition I found just now), both with just under 10k pop according to the wiki. And, as a bit of a stretch since it's not a town and most people would call it Solovki, Solovetsky settlement, famous for being a prison, with about 800 people. Also Oymyakon with under 600 people, famous for being the coldest settlement on earth if you're into that sort of thing.
Now in Georgia, I'd say Borjomi with just over 10k pop famous for its water, and Bakuriani (just over 1800 people) for its water and the ski resort. Again a bit of a stretch, but I guess everyone in Georgia at least also knows the ski resort of Gudauri at just under 100 people, as well as mountain resorts of Gomismta and Bakhmaro, both with no permanent residents due to the rough winters.
I've actually heard of Oymyakon, just as a Canadian who knows geography facts. Ushguli is new information, though. (There's definitely higher on other continents)
Recently learning more about Georgia given the current political situation. Beautiful and fascinating place that would be great to visit one day. How are the ski resorts? I'm from BC in Canada and spoiled for choice, but snowboarding in Georgia would be quite the trip!
If I'm honest it's breathtakingly beautiful. I've been around most of Europe and some of Asia, and the only comparable places are Swiss Alps and the Himalayas; however, Georgia is much cheaper than the former and more developed/safe than the latter. It's also quite tiny but heterogeneous: within a day's drive you can go from (slightly underwhelming) Black Sea through amazing forests into wild mountains, back down to vineyards and sunflower fields, through a volcanic plateau with otherworldly landscapes and then bathe in hot springs under the starry sky. There's an insane density of buildings and ruins from dozens of different cultures and epochs, all the way from bronze age to medieval Georgian to Russian colonial style to Soviet-era constructivism. I don't drink wine but I've heard that it's quite amazing too. My only gripes is that the country might be backsliding into authoritarian rule, and the locals are welcoming but "conservative" (bigoted) to the extent that it's straight up dangerous for LGBT people to visit.
Wąchock in Poland, (in)famous for being the place where tons of jokes happen, population around 2800.
Also Jeruzal, though known under its fictional name of Wilkowyje, the place where famous TV show "Ranczo" was made, population around 340.
Chicken, Alaska. Population: 12
I'd argue that everyone recognises "Chicken".
Fun fact: The settlers wanted to name their town "Ptarmigan" after the birds that were abundant in the area.
But none of them knew the correct spelling, and they didn't want to embarass themselves.
Congratulations, you played yourself.
Edit: I just realised the question was recognising the name of the city, not recognising city based on a picture...
Probably Svolvær/Lofoten with a population of ~4700. It doesn't have the official status of "City" in Norway though.
Damn, Morrowind with mods does look great nowadays
Gergovie. The place where we defeated romans 2000 years ago. Doesn't even exist anymore
What about Alesia though?
Nobody knows where it is
Lajitas, Texas, which once elected as their mayor a goat that drank beer, has a population of 75.
Terlingua, Texas, as made famous by Jerry Jeff Walker and home of the Terlingua International Chili Cook-off, has a population of 78.
Luckenbach, Texas, as made famous by Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, has a population of 3.
How about: name a country and name the smallest city you recognize from there. Like New Zealand you could say Rotarua
Christ there's a generation of Brits only know that name because of a pædo 😂
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=SwozMhzTTbs&si=qTeXDDhVFjTMxlv9
World recognition or in-country?
If world I'd guess Huskvarna (pop 24 000) for Sweden.
Known for having a company making chainsaws (among other things) named after it (Husqvarna). It is one of the two main brands of professional chainsaws (the other being Stihl).
I definitely recognized "Huskvarna" for some reason, but didn't know its location or why I would have recognized it before reading your comment. I haven't lived in Sweden or a place that would have been very easy for me to get to Sweden from.
Here in Illinois is Woodstock, at ~25,600 (2020 per Wikipedia). It was the town where Groundhog Day was filmed. There's even some small road signs here and there mentioning it for the rare tourist who comes to see it. Smallest place in the state I can think of, though there's smaller towns that have been used for movies.
Some upcoming off-brand Hallmark x-mas movie will feature local tourist trap town Long Grove IL, pop ~ 8,300 (2020 per Wikipedia). The director grew up near there so knew about it and thought it'd be perfect for his movie.
Gruyères, Switzerland. 2000 inhabitants. Famous for the famous Swiss cheese of the same name.
Corleone, Sicily, for obvious reasons. Poulation around 10k.
Wales has St. Davids - population c.1,750
I don't know about the smallest, but I've always thought that Santa Fe, New Mexico has an outsized influence on everything from food to art to architecture and culture. I visited last year and it was much smaller than I envisioned, partly because there are local regulations on building height to keep from ruining the charm of the city.
For NM I'd say Roswell; 5th largest city (48k population) but well known b/c aliens
The New Orleans French Quarter is easy to spot.
Dildo, Newfoundland, Canada: 803 people as of 2021.
Someone here mentioned Vulcan, Alberta - however given the qualifiers of country and size, its 1769 people disqualifies it.
Also, though I am a Trekkie myself and know that Vulcan is well known in those circles, it's virtually unheard of outside them.
Meanwhile, Dildo:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/odd-stories-of-2019-1.5389442
Dawson City is also a contender, at least domestically.
Byron bay. Bundaberg. Coon.
Snowtown, Port Arthur
Winnipeg, Canada (pop. 850k) has a famous namesake in Winnie the Pooh (who was named after Winnipeg) and has been in the Simpsons.
Forks, Washington population of ~7000 made very notable due to the twilight series. Or Astoria, Oregon population of ~10,000 made famous by the Goonies.