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.
In France it might be Y (population : 89), famous for having a one-letter name. Far from “anyone can still instantly recognise the name” but still probably much more well-known than any other town this size.
Otherwise idk, feels like the only french city everyone would instantly recognise the name of is Paris tbh.
Tilt Cove in Newfoundland. 5 whole people.
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.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
As someone in the US - I have absolutely zero recognition of the town of Oregon City. All I know about the Oregon trail is a bunch of people died from starvation and dysentery
Don’t forget being lost in River crossings.
In the US it must be Springfield because there’s so fucking many of them that they
namedmade 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.
Roswell, NM comes to mind. Tiny and yet most people will think of UFOs when they hear the name.
I can’t think of a smaller city in the US that fits “so many have heard of it”
Tombstone comes to mind as well
Dodge City, maybe
Waco, TX for anyone around in the 90s
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
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)
This is probably the most iconic for sure.
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.
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.
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.
That is funny!
That’s a great one!
Nokia, Finland, population 36,000. Cellphones, tyres, rubber boots, …
I’d try Bodom, population 0, if other than cities are allowed.
Or possibly Santa’s village, population 2 (if you exclude the elves)
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.
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!
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
Mont Saint-Michel, pop. 25
Chamonix of also a good contender with a population of 9000 habitants
Fucking, Austria. Population of around 100 People. They renamed it to Fugging a few years ago
