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.
From US, played Oregon trail for hundreds of hours, didn’t remember Oregon City.
Nantucket Massachusetts 10k
Aspen Colorado 7k
Jackson Hole Wyoming 10k
Key West Florida 25k
Probably all more famous and smaller population.
Tombstone, AZ has a population of 1,313.
And every one of them is hot.
Hannibal, MO - 16,838 - back when people read books they’d know this as the birthplace of Samuel Clemens AKA Mark Twain
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 😆
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.
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.
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.
Oregon City would be my answer to ‘what’s the capital of Oregon?’
Just a standard, since I never heard of the capital I’ll try the state name plus city guess.
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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
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.
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.
Mont Saint-Michel, pop. 25
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?
Edit: another comment (Aspen) made me want to mention Banff but Alberta isn’t acting Canadian anymore so it no longer counts.
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…
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
Not my location, but Scranton, PA?
Dont live near Pennsylvania at all, but Scranton sounds very familiar .
“The Office”
Also all those bananas.
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.
Pretty sure that quote refers to Prypiat. Chornobyl had around 14k people living at the moment of the evacuation, according to wikipedia
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.
Not my country, but maybe Tipperary? It only has a population of 5k.
All I know about it is that it’s a long way there.
