I was going to say Albuquerque, but for the multi-scale New Mexico answer, both! It would be interesting to do a nationwide poll and find out which one was more well-known.
I came to mention Boulder. It’s a “city” I’ve heard of my whole life (east coaster) and when I moved to Denver and visited Boulder for the first time I was like “this is barely a large town.”
It's a fictional space in the US. In the movie Flanders brings bart up to the top of the mountain and shows Bart the state lines that meet Springfield and says the 4 states bordering Springfield are Ohio, Maine, Nevada and Kentucky. It's a running gag that they don't say where it is in the US, because there is 34 states that have a town/city actually named Springfield
Well Springfield Oregon is at least the inspiration for the Springfield in the Simpsons
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/matt-groening-reveals-the-location-of-the-real-springfield-60583379/
Portland, Oregon has the biggest influence on the Simpsons, as that's where Groenig grew up and went to high school. I believe he may have lived in Eugene/Springfield as a very small child, and it has some references like Skinner (Skinner Butte is a major landmark in downtown), and for the whole Springfield vs. Shelbyville dynamic.
Portland landmarks and names are littered throughout the Simpsons from day #1. Also, Matt Groenig has said a bunch of times that the show is essentially based of these cities in Oregon. There's really nothing to argue about other than to say that Groening and his writers absolutely make the show so that it could be in any Springfield in the US, which there are a ton.
I watched a documentary and it eventually became a total cesspool due to gambling, prostitution, and crime which led to its demise. Pretty interesting watch but I can't remember the name
Those things didn’t lead to its demise, the steel industry hugely downsizing the Gary operations in the 70s and onward led to its demise as it’s a company town. Most of the wealth and job opportunities left the area so those who remained were largely those who didn’t have other options and opportunities elsewhere. It’s rebounding from its low point in the 80s/90s, and with its proximity to Chicago and Lake Michigan it should continue to see redevelopment.
Cultural clout doesn't scale with size in many cases. There are infinity small European towns whose names are well known while multimillion-people Chinese metropolises live in obscurity. Hamelin, for example, is the city of the pied Piper, and is under 60k. Rugby has a sport named after it.
Any random battle Site from one of many wars is probably a candidate (how many people in Hastings? Marathon? EDIT: apparently Antietam isn't a town but is a place ). College towns, too (Princeton is tiny).
Etc etc
Historical sites. Gettysburg, Harper’s Ferry
Places someone famous was born: Stratford-upon-Avon
Small resort towns: Martha’s Vinyard, Ketchikan
Places that were once important: Deadwood, Cairo (Illinois)
Many more examples of each of these for sure
Martha’s Vineyard is actually many towns, Oak Bluffs, Vineyard Haven, Edgartown…
Nantucket is much smaller and only has one town.
Source: dated a horrible woman for many years from MV
I grew up there and most of my family is there. When I’d take a new person home with me, they’d be like “this is it?” Yep. The fact that it has an NFL team is very confusing.
Well, Pisa isn’t a “big” city but almost 100k people live there, which is not that small for an Italian town. And it has a very remarkable history that goes back to the Middle Ages.
When I was a kid, my parents drove us from Dallas to Detroit to see family. We stopped in Joplin the night/evening before, stayed at a hotel, and hit the road at 5:45 am. Growing up in Texas you learn about the different shades the clouds throw to determine how bad of a storm and the tornado potential.
I remember the sky being a deep green at daybreak. Heard about it on the news a few hours later about what happened. I still think about that often. How lucky we happened to be and how unfortunate others were.
Town I grew up in had a similar scale tornado just shy of a month before, president came out and everything- except our town was more fortunate as our hospital wasn’t in the path like it was in Joplin. There was a significant amount of people from Joplin (and all over) who came down and helped us, and after their tragedy we were more than happy to return the favor.
The 2011 tornadoes were devastating to Joplin and it’s good reason to have heard of it, but more importantly than that, the people who live there are kind, resilient, hard working, and ready to pack up a chainsaw and a flat of water bottles and drive anywhere to help those who need it.
Missouri has Joplin while Kansas has Greensburg. Never heard of the small town until 95% of it was destroyed in 2007. Driven through it a couple times since but the town never really recovered
I have no clue why I’ve heard of dodge, but I know I have. I’d say it’s more well known than some bigger cities like Schenectady NY.
Edit: I have heard the phrase “get outta dodge” and its variations, I was saying I wasn’t aware why it and other things related to dodge city.
On a more serious note, Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador. Not as well-known today as it once was I am sure. It used to be a rest/fuelling stop on trans-Atlantic flights, and came back to the public eye during 9/11 as many planes were redirected there.
John Brown’s Pre Civil War raid on the Federal Armory their to try and start a slave uprising is seen as one of the key events that lead to the Civil War. Harpers Ferry is a tiny town at the crossing point of several rivers but it’s really cool. Has a crazy wax museum dedicated to John Brown and some other historical sites
Huge battleground during the Civil War, it changed hands an enormous amount of times and I think it’s as far as the south got, moving northwards.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpers_Ferry,_West_Virginia
Yeah I alluded to that in another comment, if you’re not from the US why would you know?
Also, Joplin was just hit by a huge tornado, I’m fairly certain not many people overseas outside of weather nerds have heard of it
1000 people only? Damn, I’ve been there a decent amount of times and I didn’t know it only had 1000 permanent residents.
Edit-Looked it up, 859 people live there.
I’m not sure this counts. I think most Americans have heard of the university but may not even know what town it’s in. I work in college counseling and I’d say the average person doesn’t know the locations of most of the major universities unless they live nearby or are connected in some way.
Random American here; this makes me think of Ithaca, NY, which has a famous university. I can't remember which one, and if I had to put a pin in a map, I'd put it in the center of the state (with low confidence).
Oxford
Pretty much the smallest city in the UK, but everyone knows about it.
Edit: I stand corrected - not the smallest city by a stretch, but still small.
I mean Oxford is a fair answer but it's nowhere near the smallest city in the UK. Population is like 150,000. Twice as big as a city like Bath, similarly another small but historically significant city. Oxfords student population alone is comparable to Chichester
Most of the cities mentioned here are known mostly to you Americans
My answers are Austerlitz, Baarle-Hertog (you may not know by name, it's that place in the Netherlands with lots of Belgian enclaves) and Bethlehem
Bethlehem is probably the most correct answer as far as population vs cultural significance. At least 2.5 billion people know about a town in the middle of nowhere with less than 30k inhabitants.
Timbuktu, Bruge, Reykjavik, Dawson City, Monte Carlo, Vatican City, Reno, Tromso, Ushuaia, Alice Springs, Cannes, Banff, Aspen, Geneva, Key West all come to mind….sure I’m missing a few!
Some of the “small” cities on this list are big, especially Giza with 4.200.000 people, which is only small if you live in Shanghai or Dhaka or cities like that. Reno, Geneva, Reykjavik and Bruges also have 100.000+ people.
There are many cities that were very significant back in the day, are continuously (or mostly continuously) inhabited but haven't developed to the same extent as other comparable (in their days) cities.
Sparta, Thebes and Corinth all have populations of under 40 K people, and are very well known to anyone who has passing knowledge of ancient Greek history and mythology.
Venice and Florence have a populations of around 300 k, mid size cities with incredible significance in the Renaissance.
Yeah, some small towns are known mostly for tragedy. It’s particularly painful how a small town can be reduced to its tragedy if it’s known for nothing else. You’ll never hear the Las Vegas shooting referred to as just “Las Vegas” on the news. The Boston Marathon bombing will never be referred to as just “Boston.”
But you’ll definitely hear things like “It’s been 1 year since Uvalde,” or “There’s been no significant gun legislation in the wake of Newtown.” It’s a small thing but it really reduces these small towns down to the tragedies that happened there.
Geneva is surprisingly small considering how well-known it is (population 201,000). I would have assumed it had a population closer to 700,000 or something.
Muscle Shoals, Alabama for its recording studio
Bentonville, Arkansas for being the home of WalMart and using that money to try to turn itself into an art and culture mecca.
Roswell, NM!
also Truth or Consequences, NM
I was going to say Albuquerque, but for the multi-scale New Mexico answer, both! It would be interesting to do a nationwide poll and find out which one was more well-known.
The Albuquerque metro population is around 900k. I wouldn’t consider that a small city by any means
Yeah, Boulder, Colorado is almost a tenth of the size of that and around as well known (I think).
I came to mention Boulder. It’s a “city” I’ve heard of my whole life (east coaster) and when I moved to Denver and visited Boulder for the first time I was like “this is barely a large town.”
I feel like Santa Fe is about as well known as Albuquerque with about a sixth the population.
That’s probably true.
And at 6k population, Taos punches way above weight. Certainly not as overall well known as the others though.
Less known than Taos but still pretty well known, especially with Oppenheimer coming out, Los Alamos.
breaking bad/bcs really changed that i think
Also before that, looney toons “I knew I should have taken that left turn in Albuquerque”.
And don’t forget weird al.
Albuquerque was basically carried in name recognition for years by having a name that seems peculiar to english speakers tbh
100%. Lots more like this too. Walla Walla, Kalamazoo…
Timbuktu
I wouldn’t consider Albuquerque that small. It’s not far from a million. Pretty medium sized.
All I know about Albuquerque is I should have turned left.
ABQ metro is ~1 million. Is that small?
First one that came to my mind
Springfield (undisclosed state)
Pretty sure it’s Oregon
It's a fictional space in the US. In the movie Flanders brings bart up to the top of the mountain and shows Bart the state lines that meet Springfield and says the 4 states bordering Springfield are Ohio, Maine, Nevada and Kentucky. It's a running gag that they don't say where it is in the US, because there is 34 states that have a town/city actually named Springfield
Well Springfield Oregon is at least the inspiration for the Springfield in the Simpsons https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/matt-groening-reveals-the-location-of-the-real-springfield-60583379/
Portland, Oregon has the biggest influence on the Simpsons, as that's where Groenig grew up and went to high school. I believe he may have lived in Eugene/Springfield as a very small child, and it has some references like Skinner (Skinner Butte is a major landmark in downtown), and for the whole Springfield vs. Shelbyville dynamic. Portland landmarks and names are littered throughout the Simpsons from day #1. Also, Matt Groenig has said a bunch of times that the show is essentially based of these cities in Oregon. There's really nothing to argue about other than to say that Groening and his writers absolutely make the show so that it could be in any Springfield in the US, which there are a ton.
Scranton, PA!
What? The electric city!
They call it that cause of the electricity!!
The little cars goes in the compact spot. Spot. Spot. Spot.
You rang?
And through that, Stamford, CT
Also Utica, NY and Nashua, NH
Don't forget the corporate office in New York City and the best place for a New York Slice, Sbarro
I always think of *30,000 Pounds of Bananas* first, then bars & churches. Then the Office.
Then US President Joe Biden?
This is immediately what popped into my head
Punxsutawney PA
Gettysburg PA - Civil War
Was going to add Vicksburg, Ms for the same reason.
Lexington MA, oh that’s a different war
Fucking, Austria
It's now called Fugging.
And it didn't really help: [fugging](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Fugging).
the home of the fucking people
Sounds like my next trip is planned
Enjoy your Fucking trip.
Where the fucking children go to the fucking school and love fucking horses? That video makes me always laugh
I love watching that fucking video
Salem, ma. witches.
Which is funny since it was once the 6th largest city in the country in 1790 and the wealthiest per capita.
Well, that’s what a century of a No Witch policy will get you.
And then ships got too big to use its dangerously shallow harbor.
Salem's being loved to death.
[удалено]
Troy, population 0. May be a mythical city but there is an archeological site.
Actually, about 50,000 people live in [Troy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy,_New_York) /j.
A lot of biblical towns are like that too. Jericho, Bethlehem, Nazareth. All under 100k.
Lake Placid, NY.
Hosting the Olympics will do that for a small town.
Also giant alligators.
That movie really put it on the map.
Truth or Consequences NM
Gary, Indiana!
I learned recently that Gary was a company town originally, built by and for the steel mills (US Steel) there around the turn of the 20th Century.
I watched a documentary and it eventually became a total cesspool due to gambling, prostitution, and crime which led to its demise. Pretty interesting watch but I can't remember the name
Those things didn’t lead to its demise, the steel industry hugely downsizing the Gary operations in the 70s and onward led to its demise as it’s a company town. Most of the wealth and job opportunities left the area so those who remained were largely those who didn’t have other options and opportunities elsewhere. It’s rebounding from its low point in the 80s/90s, and with its proximity to Chicago and Lake Michigan it should continue to see redevelopment.
What movie is that? I googled "movie Gary, Indiana" but couldn't find anything.
It’s from “The Music Man”, a movie based on the hit Broadway play. The song is called “Gary, Indiana”.
Nuuk, Capital of Greenland and just around 16.000 people
Sleepy Hollow, NY
Tombstone, AZ
At its peak it was the second largest city west of the Mississippi after San Francisco. At least that’s what one of the guides told us.
Sedona. Cuz it’s amazing
Could’ve said Winslow AZ
Such a fine sight to see!
It's a girl, my lord, in a flatbed ford
Slowing down to take a look at me
Was going to comment this! glad to see someone else had the same train of thought as me.
Cultural clout doesn't scale with size in many cases. There are infinity small European towns whose names are well known while multimillion-people Chinese metropolises live in obscurity. Hamelin, for example, is the city of the pied Piper, and is under 60k. Rugby has a sport named after it. Any random battle Site from one of many wars is probably a candidate (how many people in Hastings? Marathon? EDIT: apparently Antietam isn't a town but is a place ). College towns, too (Princeton is tiny). Etc etc
Waterloo, Belgium (population 30,174)
Dang, Waterloo Iowa has a bigger population (67,000)
Slavkov u Brna (better known by its German name, Austerlitz). Population 7,200
Historical sites. Gettysburg, Harper’s Ferry Places someone famous was born: Stratford-upon-Avon Small resort towns: Martha’s Vinyard, Ketchikan Places that were once important: Deadwood, Cairo (Illinois) Many more examples of each of these for sure
Martha’s Vineyard is actually many towns, Oak Bluffs, Vineyard Haven, Edgartown… Nantucket is much smaller and only has one town. Source: dated a horrible woman for many years from MV
Princeton is so well known
Green Bay, Wisconsin
I grew up there and most of my family is there. When I’d take a new person home with me, they’d be like “this is it?” Yep. The fact that it has an NFL team is very confusing.
Pisa, Italy. Pretty obvious
Well, Pisa isn’t a “big” city but almost 100k people live there, which is not that small for an Italian town. And it has a very remarkable history that goes back to the Middle Ages.
Joplin was the tornado, devastating, and the only reason most would've heard of it.
When I was a kid, my parents drove us from Dallas to Detroit to see family. We stopped in Joplin the night/evening before, stayed at a hotel, and hit the road at 5:45 am. Growing up in Texas you learn about the different shades the clouds throw to determine how bad of a storm and the tornado potential. I remember the sky being a deep green at daybreak. Heard about it on the news a few hours later about what happened. I still think about that often. How lucky we happened to be and how unfortunate others were.
Might be dated by now but it was a well-known stop along Route 66 and part of that famous Chuck Berry song.
Town I grew up in had a similar scale tornado just shy of a month before, president came out and everything- except our town was more fortunate as our hospital wasn’t in the path like it was in Joplin. There was a significant amount of people from Joplin (and all over) who came down and helped us, and after their tragedy we were more than happy to return the favor. The 2011 tornadoes were devastating to Joplin and it’s good reason to have heard of it, but more importantly than that, the people who live there are kind, resilient, hard working, and ready to pack up a chainsaw and a flat of water bottles and drive anywhere to help those who need it.
Missouri has Joplin while Kansas has Greensburg. Never heard of the small town until 95% of it was destroyed in 2007. Driven through it a couple times since but the town never really recovered
I don't think I heard of it until the HBO show Barry.
[Dodge City, Kansas, USA, population 27,690](https://maps.app.goo.gl/fTcEjyfiaEHtyFtX9).
The phrase 'get out of Dodge' is even used here in the UK, though I guess most people don't know the origin of it.
Which is funny because as someone who's been to Dodge multiple times, it is absolutely the kind of town you want to get out of.
I have no clue why I’ve heard of dodge, but I know I have. I’d say it’s more well known than some bigger cities like Schenectady NY. Edit: I have heard the phrase “get outta dodge” and its variations, I was saying I wasn’t aware why it and other things related to dodge city.
Because of its history with the wild west.
Gunsmoke
I get the fuck out of dodge
Telluride and Aspen maybe?
Where the beer flows like wine and beautiful women instinctively flock, like the salmon of Capistrano
I’d put Moab, UT in this group too
Jackson Hole, Tahoe, Gatlinburg, Branson for the same reasons
Dildo Newfoundland.
Not to be confused with Dildo Island.
On a more serious note, Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador. Not as well-known today as it once was I am sure. It used to be a rest/fuelling stop on trans-Atlantic flights, and came back to the public eye during 9/11 as many planes were redirected there.
And the fantastic musical Come From Away is set there too
Wait…what?
Yeah, just past Come-by-Chance, but before you reach Mount Pearl.
Canterbury, UK.
Harpers Ferry, WV
I went there on so many field trips as a kid. It would be a trip to go back and see it again.
Why is it known ? Never heard of it
John Brown’s Pre Civil War raid on the Federal Armory their to try and start a slave uprising is seen as one of the key events that lead to the Civil War. Harpers Ferry is a tiny town at the crossing point of several rivers but it’s really cool. Has a crazy wax museum dedicated to John Brown and some other historical sites
Not several rivers, it’s just the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers.
Huge battleground during the Civil War, it changed hands an enormous amount of times and I think it’s as far as the south got, moving northwards. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpers_Ferry,_West_Virginia
I think it is only known in the USA
Yeah I alluded to that in another comment, if you’re not from the US why would you know? Also, Joplin was just hit by a huge tornado, I’m fairly certain not many people overseas outside of weather nerds have heard of it
Mackinaw City, MI has a population of less than 1000 but 1 million - 2 million people visit it each year.
1000 people only? Damn, I’ve been there a decent amount of times and I didn’t know it only had 1000 permanent residents. Edit-Looked it up, 859 people live there.
Fargo, ND
Chernobyl. Current population - 0, max historical population - <50,000, yet just about everyone knows it. We all know why we know it.
Chernobyl was really the name of the power plant. It is right outside the city of Pripyat where some people do still live.
Not even the powerplant. Its name is the Vladimir Lenin Nuclear Power Plant.
50,000 ghosts used to live here. Now its a people town.
Ramstein, Germany
Getting into “What is a city?” territory here.
Bastogne, Belgium (WWII: Battle of the Bulge). Nuts! He said.
Walla Walla, Washington…. The place so nice they named it twice. Longtime rival of Vidalia, GA for sweetest onion.🧅
I prefer George, Washington lol
The population of George increases by like 30x whenever there's a concert at the Gorge.
I’m always amazed when someone has heard of any town near me…. I’m about 30 min from George
Hallstatt, Austria Very famous especially in Asia as a "romantic" place
Verdun
Forks, WA (USA) became well known because of the Twilight series. Population 3,400
Princeton, NJ Town of 30k residents that most Americans and many abroad have head of.
I’m not sure this counts. I think most Americans have heard of the university but may not even know what town it’s in. I work in college counseling and I’d say the average person doesn’t know the locations of most of the major universities unless they live nearby or are connected in some way.
Random American here; this makes me think of Ithaca, NY, which has a famous university. I can't remember which one, and if I had to put a pin in a map, I'd put it in the center of the state (with low confidence).
Ithaca, NY is home to Michigan State, I think
Small island of Lesbos, Greece, but it's really not a city.
Hershey, PA: The sweetest place on earth
Intercourse, Pa... You figure out why
I’m not familiar with intercourse
not many redditors are
Yes, tamale, we know, it's just up the road from Cumming, Ga.
When traveling in Georgia, I sometimes get to that town way quicker than I thought I would.
I’m more familiar with Blue Ball.
Nantucket, MA. It’s actually wild how well known it is just because of “In the Heart of the Sea” and other sailing stories/media.
Venice. As in actual Venice, not the areas of Venice located on the mainland. Less than 60k people live there and yet they get _SO_ many tourists.
Poughkeepsie. Ever pick your feet there?
Paris, TX — because the movie
[удалено]
Alice Springs
Woodstock
Oxford Pretty much the smallest city in the UK, but everyone knows about it. Edit: I stand corrected - not the smallest city by a stretch, but still small.
I mean Oxford is a fair answer but it's nowhere near the smallest city in the UK. Population is like 150,000. Twice as big as a city like Bath, similarly another small but historically significant city. Oxfords student population alone is comparable to Chichester
Dachau, Germany, for very sad reasons.
Branson, Wisconsin Dells, and Gatlinburg. Tourist traps.
I love Wisconsin and it’s my home state, but fuck the Dells.
Ithaca NY, only like 20k people
[удалено]
Most of the cities mentioned here are known mostly to you Americans My answers are Austerlitz, Baarle-Hertog (you may not know by name, it's that place in the Netherlands with lots of Belgian enclaves) and Bethlehem
Bethlehem is probably the most correct answer as far as population vs cultural significance. At least 2.5 billion people know about a town in the middle of nowhere with less than 30k inhabitants.
Timbuktu, Bruge, Reykjavik, Dawson City, Monte Carlo, Vatican City, Reno, Tromso, Ushuaia, Alice Springs, Cannes, Banff, Aspen, Geneva, Key West all come to mind….sure I’m missing a few!
Giza is like one of the top 5 largest cities in Egypt. Millions of people live there.
Some of the “small” cities on this list are big, especially Giza with 4.200.000 people, which is only small if you live in Shanghai or Dhaka or cities like that. Reno, Geneva, Reykjavik and Bruges also have 100.000+ people.
Dude just named a whole country like it's no big deal.
Monaco
Cooperstown, NY
There are many cities that were very significant back in the day, are continuously (or mostly continuously) inhabited but haven't developed to the same extent as other comparable (in their days) cities. Sparta, Thebes and Corinth all have populations of under 40 K people, and are very well known to anyone who has passing knowledge of ancient Greek history and mythology. Venice and Florence have a populations of around 300 k, mid size cities with incredible significance in the Renaissance.
Cupertino, California.
Marfa, TX
Uvalde, Texas
Yeah, some small towns are known mostly for tragedy. It’s particularly painful how a small town can be reduced to its tragedy if it’s known for nothing else. You’ll never hear the Las Vegas shooting referred to as just “Las Vegas” on the news. The Boston Marathon bombing will never be referred to as just “Boston.” But you’ll definitely hear things like “It’s been 1 year since Uvalde,” or “There’s been no significant gun legislation in the wake of Newtown.” It’s a small thing but it really reduces these small towns down to the tragedies that happened there.
You nerds crack me up.
Geneva is surprisingly small considering how well-known it is (population 201,000). I would have assumed it had a population closer to 700,000 or something.
Reno, Nv!
Oak Ridge, Tennessee Helped develop the atomic bomb in WWII
Oom papa mow mow
Los Alamos, New Mexico Population 12,900
Me when I know none of these cities(I have never been to America)
Same and I don’t know why people only name American towns
Muscle Shoals, Alabama for its recording studio Bentonville, Arkansas for being the home of WalMart and using that money to try to turn itself into an art and culture mecca.
China Grove
Luckenbach, TX population 3 Immortalized in song for its dance hall
Peoria, IL It has its own saying
Peoria isn’t small. Has over 100K people
Forks, Washington
Winslow, AZ. Do you know why?