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.
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.Darwin, Australia.
Famous for being bombed by the Japanese repeatedly during World War 2
Probably Dildo, Newfoundland.
You know why.
Edit: Actually, I think Dawson City is smaller. It’s famous for being a big city back during the gold rush, despite being up near the arctic circle.
In the US it must be Springfield because there’s so fucking many of them that they named a TV show after it.
named a TV show after it
The Springfields?
Okay, I spilled my coffee. I’ll be giggling all day.
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.
The smallest Indian city that (almost) all Indians would know would be the hill resort of Shimla (pop 170,000). However, this is because a place is expected to have a population of about 100,000 to be declared a ‘city’, so for example New Delhi is only a town.
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
Puerto Hurraco. Population 100. Everybody in Spain recognises its name because of a shooting that got burned into the collective mind.
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.
How about Jokkmokk?
Strong contender! Definitely less populated, but I think also less well known?
Ok good point, maybe the kids today never heard Jokkmokks-Jocke?
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Wales has St. Davids - population c.1,750
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.
Roswell, NM comes to mind. Tiny and yet most people will think of UFOs when they hear the name.
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
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
Byron bay. Bundaberg. Coon.
Snowtown, Port Arthur
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.
