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.
As someone in the US - I have absolutely zero recognition of the town of Oregon City. All I know about the Oregon trail is a bunch of people died from starvation and dysentery
Reno.
For uhhh… Reno.
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
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.
Hannibal, MO - 16,838 - back when people read books they’d know this as the birthplace of Samuel Clemens AKA Mark Twain
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.
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 😆
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.
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 have a town called “Fucking” with only a few hundred people living there. the town sign gets stolen once a month
Davos switzerland. (WEF) (10k) Mariana brazil. (Known for a ecological disaster). (60k)
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.
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.
Similar to how more people have heard of Lockerbie than any other Scottish town of 5000 people.
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.
Nokia, Finland, population 36,000. Cellphones, tyres, rubber boots, …
Does it count if you know the thing it’s known for but not that it’s a place?
I’d try Bodom, population 0, if other than cities are allowed.
Or possibly Santa’s village, population 2 (if you exclude the elves)
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.
The smallest Indian city that (almost) all Indians would know would be the hill resort of Shimla (pop 170,000). However, this is because a place is expected to have a population of about 100,000 to be declared a ‘city’, so for example New Delhi is only a town.
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!
Mont Saint-Michel, pop. 25
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.
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.
