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.
Wales has St. Davids - population c.1,750
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.
I think the game ended in The Dalles didn’t it?
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.
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.
But most of the world did not have the US education system. I’d say only some Americans have heard of Oregon City, and very few non Americans.
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 was popular, but I think most folks who played it remember dying of dysentery, not the cities 😆
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.
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 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.
I take it it’s not Portland?
I just looked it up. Salem is the capital. Portland is the largest city.
I am not in the US. Never heard of Oregon City. But Atlantic City sounds really familiar.
Fairly big city and a tourist destination if you are too trash to go to Reno, which is where you go if you are too trash to go to Vegas.
Ocean City is the new Atlantic City anyway.
For real. I’d think many more people could name Panama city in Florida. Famous spring break and vacation city every kid who’s gone through college or listened to Van Halen knows of. Also has a population of less than 36,000 people.
Paris. It’s also a city in Texas.
Did anyone fix the roof in the one house in London, Tx yet?
I see you and raise, Las Vegas, NM.
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.)
Hmmm
https://blog.txfb-ins.com/texas-travel/european-cities-in-texas/ someone has mapped out the “European” Texas road trip.
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)
On that note, Paris, Texas is a great movie.
Winnipeg, Canada (pop. 850k) has a famous namesake in Winnie the Pooh (who was named after Winnipeg) and has been in the Simpsons.
850k isn’t really small though.
It’s still small for a city, especially a capital city. However, it’s bigger than Regina 😄
Your “small city” has more people than 5 US states
It has more people than anywhere that has less people.
It’s about the same population as San Francisco.
If you mean people from my country… All of them.
New Zealand only has like 10 actual cities. It is not some great feat of memory to know them all.
Matamata is really nice.
What’s your population threshold for city, here? Are there just a ton of rural people? It feels like a major country.
50k people
Looking at this list some are dubious. e.g. Hibicus Coast (#9) has been swallowed up by Auckland (#1), I would have called it a part of Auckland, much like Manakau City, which isn’t on the list.
Lower Hutt (#6) and Upper Hutt (#18) are on the list but Petone is not, geographically they are part of the same long valley and can almost all be considered part of Wellington like Manakau City is part of Auckland.
But you also get places like Masterton (#28), feels city like, since it is the largest settlement in the region but really it is a big town, it takes up a huge area though. Mainly services the farming communities around it.
Wow. And you still have >5 million people? This list goes all the way down to what I’d call not quite villages, but very small towns (although your link is broken, you need to add the Wikipedia part).
Thanks, fixed the link.
When you consider that the top 5 on that list take up 50% of the population. Auckland continues to grow, and at 30% of the population already, it has an crazy effect on the economic decisions in the country.
It is also growing geographically, eventually Auckland and Hamilton will merge somewhere around Huntly (#50).
Huh, so it does. It looks like it shouldn’t at first, my bad.
Have you had any luck with the urban sprawl? We’ve brought in a bunch of urban densification stuff recently in Canada, and NZ was cited as an example to follow.
Auckland is the definition of sprawl.
A bunch of laws were past on the last few years to combat it, but we find see the effects for decades to come.
I remember going to Auckland in the 90s and being amazed how low everything was considering it’s size. Wellington was vertical. Auckland was horizontal.
At least, that’s how it felt.
Not my location, but Scranton, PA?
Dont live near Pennsylvania at all, but Scranton sounds very familiar .
“The Office”
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
Vulcan, Alberta.
Famous because of a spaceship that landed there once, I think.
Some people with pointed ears may have also been involved, but I would replicate that with a grain of salt. I haven’t really looked into it.
It’s a total aside, but I feel like more people should know about Shag Harbour, NS for similar reasons. That and The Shag Harbour Incident would make an excellent band name.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shag_Harbour_UFO_incident
They have a little museum which is kinda fun.
Darwin, Australia.
Famous for being bombed by the Japanese repeatedly during World War 2
I’d go with Port Arthur, Tasmania. 251 people from the 2016 census and the massacre is still burned into many people’s memories.
Aramoana here in New Zealand. It has a population in the low hundreds and it is famous for a horrible massacre in 1990. The cops here don’t usually have guns and in a little place like that there are often only a handful of police that are anywhere in the general region.
Bobcaygeon, population 3,500.
It might not count as a city but Nome Alaska has the Iditarod with only, 3700 people. Or maybe some famous battlefield, Gettysburg has 7100 people. A ski resort like Aspen could count with 7000. We all had to memorize state capitals so maybe somewhere like Montpelier, Vermont has more recognition but has 7800 people.
Sturgis also has a population of around 7,000, and has a pretty significant cultural awareness because of its annual motorbiking event
Jeez, I had no idea Aspen and Montpelier were so small.
Aspen has been experiencing a deep housing crisis for years. They have to bus in most of their workers from nearby towns because no one who has to work for a living can afford to live in Aspen. Now there’s a worker shortage because no one can afford to live in the outlying towns either.
Idk about Montpelier but Aspen is kind of connected to a more populated area in the Roaring Fork valley.
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.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.
How about: name a country and name the smallest city you recognize from there. Like New Zealand you could say Rotarua
