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.
Byron bay. Bundaberg. Coon.
Snowtown, Port Arthur
Tilt Cove in Newfoundland. 5 whole people.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Gruyères, Switzerland. 2000 inhabitants. Famous for the famous Swiss cheese of the same name.
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):
- Wittenoom, WA - population 0 - well known in Australia for being heavily contaminated with dangerous blue asbestos (which used to be mined there until the 60s), and having been de-gazetted and removed from maps to discourage tourism to it.
- Coober Pedy, SA - population 1437 - well known in Australia for its underground homes and opal production.
- Alice Springs, NT - population 25,912 - well known for being near the centre of Australia in the rangelands (outback) - most larger population centres in Australia are coastal.
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:
- Gundegai - population 2,057 (2021 census) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gundagai
- Featured in songs and poetry, most famously Along the Road to Gundegai
- ‘The Dog on the Tucker Box’ sits on the road outside the town (and is itself a reference to a poem mentioning Gundegai)
- Betoota - population 3 (2023) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betoota,_Queensland
- Known because its name was adopted by the satirical news website The Betoota Advocate
- Gundegai - population 2,057 (2021 census) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gundagai
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)
coober pedy was my best guess too!
Hell, Michigan
I had to scroll way too far down for this one, but it was the first one I thought of.
Another one would be Gary Indiana
We don’t talk about Gary
Not my location, but Scranton, PA?
Dont live near Pennsylvania at all, but Scranton sounds very familiar .
Scranton. WHAT? The electric city!
“The Office”
Also all those bananas.
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.
Paris. It’s also a city in Texas.
On that note, Paris, Texas is a great movie.
Did anyone fix the roof in the one house in London, Tx yet?
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
Cairo, IL (Population 1,505)
Pronounced kæro (K air o)
Pronounced kæro (K air o)
Comically, in Latin the æ would be pronounced with a sound like “ai” in “aisle,” so kæro would be pretty much the same as how you would expect to say Cairo.
(Fun fact, in Latin “Caesar” is pronounced very similarly to “Kaiser,” and is where the word “Kaiser” comes from.)
I’ve always heard it pronounced “Kay-roe”. 🤷
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)
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.
Chamonix of also a good contender with a population of 9000 habitants
Also consider that Roquefort-sur-Soulzon, of cheese fame, has 528 inhabitants.
I didn’t thought of that, you’re right!
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.
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
For foreigners, probably Abbottabad (population: 275,890) due to being the site of Osama Bin Laden’s compound.
For Pakistanis themselves, it’s a bit harder to determine, as I’m not able to find reliable population statistics for smaller settlements. However, some contenders are probably Nathia Gali, Chitral, Skardu and Ziarat. All of these towns are in the northern mountainous regions of Pakistan, which don’t have as much population density as e.g. the plains of Punjab. They’re also fairly popular tourist destinations for Pakistanis who want to take a break from the heat. Ziarat could be especially famous, as Muhammad Ali Jinnah (founder of Pakistan) spent some of his last days in a cottage there. It even appears on the 100-rupee note.
