People not from the USA and have never visited: What is the smallest US city you know by name?
People not from the USA and have never visited: What is the smallest US city you know by name?
Like, can you name just a few large cities in certain regions, none at all, wtf is the USA, etc.
The USA is geopolitically isolated in a rather unique way on the global stage where this is an interesting perspective.
The first I thought of was Dead Horse, Alaska. Permanent population 25 - 50, I understand.
I really can't recall where I first heard of it though.
I have probably heard of a few other odd ones like this.
That's where the "definitely just a balloon, don't pay any attention" landed after the Chinese spy balloon was shot down about a year ago.
At least that's the first time I heard of Dead Horse.
Smallest I know of is Lyle, Minnesota (population of 573). The only reason I know that is because I added all of the buildings there to OpenStreetMap - before and after photo on Mastodon.
I am from the USA but I want to say that for any foreigner who's seen the movie Groundhog Day (or news about the occasion), the answer is Punxutawney.
Filmed in Woodstock, IL.
My childhood is a lie!
Smallest settlement I know would be Intercourse, Pennsylvania. Not a city by any stretch.
The next one that comes to mind is Jackson, Jackson Hole, Wyoming where we had an exchange student from 20+ years ago.
Gary Indiana?
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Tbh I don't even remember why I know the name.
A few smaller ones that pop into my head are Boulder, Amarillo, Centralia (does that still count?), Slab city (not sure that counts either), Salem and Providence. Looking it up, the smallest proper city of these is Salem with 44k.
I could also probably name a ton of European city names and there will be small towns in the USA with that name, but that would kind of be cheating.
And which salem... lol. (I know which you mean, but there are others too. Very few names in the US aren't used many times.)
Nevada city, California. Population 3k+. Thanks to my wife's addiction to christmas movies.
Hey, I've been there! Related to Christmas, every year Nevada City has a Victorian Christmas celebration where they all dress fancy and neighboring Grass Valley has Cornish Christmas, that seems to celebrate the working class. Total speculation on my part, I'm guessing in the 1800s all the mine owners lived in Nevada City and all the miners lived in Grass Valley.
Probably Boring, Oregon. It is twinned with a town near me called Dull
My general geography of the States is alright due to a bunch of American friends and a girlfriend, but definitely not great
Drove through there (Boring) an hour ago. It's a cute place
I have passed through Dull only once, and it was unintentional. It's in a beautiful area, though! While there's not really anything to see in Dull itself - it's basically just a collection of about thirty houses - it definitely has the views
I think if I'm ever in Oregon I'll have to take a little pilgrimage to Boring. Oregon seems cool. Same goes for Bland in Australia, since it joined the little club. They call it the Trinity of Tedium.
Wayland, Texas. According to wikipedia it had a population of 100 people in the year 2000. AFAIK it's a ghost town now.
I know that town because I once read a "fun fact" about the Wayland Protocol that said its name was chosen for being the name of an actual town, which (supposedly) cannot be copyrighted.
I stopped for gas in London, Texas recently. My wife looked it up, and it had a population of 188 about 20 years ago, and nobody has counted since.
The lady behind the counter at the gas station was ancient. She had a handwritten “no loitering” sign on the door that seemed ironic.
Naw that sign was there to chase off Steve. Sumbitch always hanging around harassing the womenfolk what come in to buy their sundries, never buying anything.
I have zero idea how big any city in the US is beyond "big". I couldn't begin to rank them by size
Hell, Michigan. Uniquely memorable, for some reason.
Paris, Texas. Yeah, from the movie.
Huh. Didn't know that was in a movie.
That is a small town though. If you like corn, oil and wild hogs you would be a good fit down there.
I'll be honest with ya, no fucking clue which of them is smaller or not.
Pflugerville. My mother has lived there for a while. She moved back to Europe when she got pregnant.
Pflugerville is pretty big now, there’s. Lot of industry moving north of Austin.
In other words: who's played ticket to ride USA?
Cooter, Missouri
In a similar vein, there is a town in Oklahoma (the foam finger above Texas) called Hooker.
I've been there... It should just be called Lot Lizard...
Ask it the other way, too. What's the smallest European city Americans can name?
Muff, Ireland. They have a fantastic diving club.
It would have been Fucking, Austria. But it finally broke under the pressure and was renamed. I have not dedicated any brain cells to remembering what exactly its new name is, which I guess is the intended effect.
Well, as a consolation there is Rottenegg in Germany. Not nearly as catchy though.
Stratford-upon-Avon ~100k (had to look up the population)
Or if England no longer counts for European, Corniglia, Italy (part of Cinque de Terra)Vatican City.
I've likely seen some smaller ones in places like Tom Scott videos, but can't name any offhand.
Amalfi, Italy. My great grandpa was born there, though he immigrated with his family to the US pretty young.
Does Avdiikva count?
Probably the smallest that could be called a city is Dieppe, because a Huguenot ancestor of mine was from there. The smallest municipality that I can think of easily is John o' Groats, which is reasonably well-known for its location.
Hell Norway population: 1589
Gimmelwald Switzerland, but I've been there a few times and the pretense was never being there lol
Best town in the world.
Rachel, Nevada, because of Area51 and Penn and Teller’s Bullshit.
Truth or Consequences, NM
Heard it on a true crime podcast once and obviously I had to look up how it got its name and now it's just stuck.
EDIT: Missed the never travelled to qualifier. I've been to California twice and NYC once. Only heard of Truth or Consequences after my travels.
I'm from the US and I only know about Truth or Consequences from Doctor Who.
Hell is always a good answer.
While flying to NY for a week, I saw some cities on the airplane map that I remember because it was weird to me that there is a "London" in the USA, or a "Berlin". Apparently, Berlin (New Hampshire) is a city of around 10k inhabitants...
I mainly know big cities and the names of some states.
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There's no California County in Maryland.
Hollywood is in St. Mary’s county. So is California (also a town, just about 15 minutes down the highway) for that matter.
“London” in the USA,
there's also London ontario in Canada
Nantucket (pop 14,255 according to Wikipedia) and Los Alamos (13,179)
I once knew a man from Nantucket...
Did you, by any chance, call him Ishmael?
Uhh, without looking anything up, Nome, Alaska? In the lower 48, maybe Butte, Montana. Oh wait, how big is Roswell?
I know a fair bit. I could probably label most of the states on a map. Canada is very, very close culturally and obviously geographically, and we pay attention to you the way a flea pays attention to dogs.
Yeah yeah, y'all are like Texas talking about independence but from the other side of the boarder. You're practically States already; one major oil strike away from a WMD Bushwanking invasion.
...if only we could afford your Megaflea market - Vancouver.
Muldraugh? I guess it has to be somewhat small, it sure feels like it when it's full of zombies
Silent Hill
The place that is modeled after is a real place called Centralia in Pennsylvania. It's a town largely knocked down due to unstable grounds due to the coal fire that has been going on underground for years. Because of this toxic gasses and smoke bellow out of people's basements and house foundations. There are several venting pipes as well. If I recall there is maybe a dozen hold out residents left in the town and possibly a handful of vampires or something. I got bored watching a documentary about it.
Bluff, Utah. Met a bloke online who told a joke off it, which only made sense after searching for "A bland bluff in Utah." Which brought up another town.
I visited NYC for less than a week.
Des Moines , Iowa.
For Canada it's probably Sherbrooke or
jonviveJonquière.Bonus game: name the linking theme and specific things that link those places. Hint: it's not french things.
EDIT: Famous metal bands come from there. Slipknot from Des Moines, Gorguts from Sherbrooke, Voivod from Jonquiere
For me it's mostly places in the middle of nowhere that popped up on Google Maps because they had the same name as a city this side of the pond that I was looking for. I know there are several tiny Londons, a tiny Prague, and iirc even a tiny Poland
Saganough, Michigan, for the sono. Not sure how small it is.
Saganough, Michigan, for the sono. Not sure how small it is.
Saginaw, Michigan had a population of 44,202 in the 2020 census.
I know you have Kraków spelled basically the same, in Illinois iirc. Which is nice 🙂
There's an incorrectly spelled Krakow, Wisconsin as well.
How old is this crowd? No one knows Luckenbach?
Flint, Michigan or Uvalde, Texas (I don't know which is smaller). I'm sure you can guess why.
Alabama
i've been to the USA once so this might not count... but i think i knew "Salem" before visiting the US (but did not visit Salem though) so it might as well count.
However very long after knowing Salem exists i saw a documentation about something in the area that possibly caused halluzinations in the peoples minds, the documentation suggested this was a likely cause for the cities history, but those effects were why i knew about Salem in the first place. i don't remember what it was, think some plant, but don't remember exactly.
however this is the smallest city i could name in the reagion you asked for.
well, but: I don't see a geopolitical isolation there, they even want to build walls to start isolating themselves. and i don't see anything unique in that situation either. newzealand, iceland, madagasca just to name a few are more isolated geopolitically and much more unique in so many ways too.
could you help me to see the geopolicically isolation and uniqueness you are talking about?
It is the distance and lack of opposition that create the geopolitical isolation. Canada and Mexico are both irrelevant on their own as rivals. The USA is the primary trade partner of both and hold major sway over both. No other power in all of history has had this level of isolation.
The lack of significant boarders and tensions means people have a very different outlook about traveling and foreigners. I've moved over 2k miles twice in my life, and I have been to most of the USA; all but 3 States. I have never been to Europe, and things like foreign languages have no real appeal because they lack application and practical use.
The boarder bullshit in the USA is a distraction tactics to suck in the imbeciles for populist nonsense. There is no actual boarder issue other than the complete lack of reasonable laws protections and reforms that would be enacted if Congress actually did their jobs. The USA has a tenth the laws and protections of Western European countries and Japan. This is why the billionaire oligarchy exists; loophole exploitation. These then fund the populists to squawk their bullshit distractions. None of their message has any relevance. It is the rallying call of convenient idiots and the ultra wealthy.
This place is unique in the way we face inward. It is really because the average person just can't afford to escape, and it is a long way to get there. We have an enormous range of diverse regions within the USA.
I don't know any small towns or cities in Europe, but my personality type is no one to remember names like this. I'm more curious about other's perspectives. I can never leave where I am now, as I am disabled. I'm exploring my own way instead.
Jackman, Maine. Went once, not a very interesting place, about 1000 people there, in the middle of fucking nowhere
Considering it's most notable feature is being on the border I'd say it's closer to the edge of fucking nowhere.
Joshua Tree
I thought that one is a national park?
Ablaquerqueueue?
Interesting
Easy, Uvalde. Has only ~15k