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.
Ramstein, population ~5600
Famous for the Ramstein Air base, the bombing of the air base, the Ramstein air show disaster and the band named after all of that.
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.
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.
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…
Omg…i spent 4 hours in Gander one evening, so it took about 20 hours to go Dallas -> Chicago -> Gander-> Chicago.
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.
Nope
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.
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.
I was under the impression that Pripyat was the town?
Yeah, the town mentioned in the quote is, in fact, Pripyat, my bad. Still, Chornobyl is another Ghost town and the exclusion Zone is named after it, so it’s the town people recognise more.
Pretty sure that quote refers to Prypiat. Chornobyl had around 14k people living at the moment of the evacuation, according to wikipedia
Edit: I just realised the question was recognising the name of the city, not recognising city based on a picture…
Probably Svolvær/Lofoten with a population of ~4700. It doesn’t have the official status of “City” in Norway though.
Damn, Morrowind with mods does look great nowadays
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
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)
I actually used to own a cellphone and tyres from Nokia at the same time.
Back when I was in Russia I’d say it’d be Suzdal, famous for the density of churches and other traditional architecture; or Tarusa, known for that one song that everyone seems to know a couple of lines from, Gorodok (here is a random rendition I found just now), both with just under 10k pop according to the wiki. And, as a bit of a stretch since it’s not a town and most people would call it Solovki, Solovetsky settlement, famous for being a prison, with about 800 people. Also Oymyakon with under 600 people, the coldest settlement on earth if you’re into that sort of thing.
Now in Georgia, I’d say Borjomi with just over 10k pop famous for its water, and Bakuriani (just over 1800 people) for its water and the ski resort. Again a bit of a stretch, but I guess everyone in Georgia at least also knows the ski resort of Gudauri at just under 100 people, as well as mountain resorts of Gomismta and Bakhmaro, both with no permanent residents due to the rough winters. Geography nerds will also be familiar with Ushguli, (arguably) the highest inhabited settlement in Europe, population 220.
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.
Yeah, no Tim, nobody’s ever sung a song about getting to Cupertino
Wąchock in Poland, (in)famous for being the place where tons of jokes happen, population around 2800.
Also Jeruzal, though known under its fictional name of Wilkowyje, the place where famous TV show “Ranczo” was made, population around 340.
I’m in the US and I can’t say I’d heard of Oregon City before this post…
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 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.
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.
I think the game ended in The Dalles didn’t it?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Similar to how more people have heard of Lockerbie than any other Scottish town of 5000 people.
Sandy Hook is ~9,000. You may not remember, but Alex Jones does.
Yeah Alex Jones can rot in hell
OP said famous, not infamous.
💀
Ah yeah, I was going for instantly recognizable
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.
Van Halen and Spring Break dictates that everyone knows Panama city.
Population of under 36,000.
“Panama isn’t about a city, it’s the stage name of a stripper from Albuquerque!”
- David Lee Roth
It doesn’t matter that it isn’t actually about the city. That doesn’t change that people think of and know Panama the city due to the song. They either know it because they think it’s about the city, or they know it because they’re like you with their “actually”, which shows that you and anyone else who knows it’s about a stripper still knows of the city.
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.
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
