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 Slovenia I believe Sevnica (4.5k population) - home town of Melania Trump - would be the smallest most recognizable place by the world.
But Slovenia is small enough even Kostanjevica na Krki with 802 or Vače with 421 population is easily recognizable by Slovenians.
In the UK and a city? Probably Liverpool and because of The Beatles.
A Town? Well it certainly used to be Lockerbie where Pan-Am flight 103 crashed after a terrorist bombing just before Christmas 1988. It was on it’s way from London to New York.
Probably not known by the younger generations though.
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?
How about: name a country and name the smallest city you recognize from there. Like New Zealand you could say Rotarua
What do you consider small? A lot of people know Cupertino California because Apple are based there, but it’s only got a population of 57k. It’s arguably more recognizable than the closest major city (San Jose), which has a population of nearly 1 million.
San Jose metro area is enormous though. For example I’d consider Gilroy (which is famous for its garlic) as being completely separate from San Jose even though it’s well within San Jose’s metro area.
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?
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.
Mont Saint-Michel, pop. 25
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.
In Denmark it’s probably Snave (No English Wikipedia page for it). Population is a whopping 211 people. It was popularized in a series of commercials for a Danish cellular carrier. The concept was so popular that there even was a movie. I haven’t seen it, but the reviews seems to suggest it could be fun to watch… If you are drunk enough.
The word “snave” in Danish can somewhat be translated to snogging in English. Heavy kissing. Which has led to the city having massive problems with theft of their signs.
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.
ottawa
I think a decent number of people know about Dildo, NL
Wales has St. Davids - population c.1,750
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
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.
Byron bay. Bundaberg. Coon.
Snowtown, Port Arthur
