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.

  • superkret@feddit.org
    12·
    3 days ago

    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.

  • finestnothing@lemmy.world
    8·
    3 days ago

    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

  • Wolf314159@startrek.website
    161·
    3 days ago

    In the US it must be Springfield because there’s so fucking many of them that they named made a TV show after it.

    Stupid sexy autocorrect.

    • Notyou@sopuli.xyz
      17·
      5 days ago

      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.

    • boyi@lemmy.sdf.org
      101·
      5 days ago

      I am not in the US. Never heard of Oregon City. But Atlantic City sounds really familiar.

    • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
      3·
      4 days ago

      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.

      • 69420@lemmy.worldEnglish
        16·
        5 days ago

        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.

      • fjordbasa@lemmy.worldEnglish
        13·
        5 days ago

        It was popular, but I think most folks who played it remember dying of dysentery, not the cities 😆

      • evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world
        5·
        4 days ago

        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.

      • BlitzoTheOisSilent@lemmy.world
        6·
        5 days ago

        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.

      • over_clox@lemmy.world
        5·
        5 days ago

        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.

      • pixelscript@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        3 days ago

        It is. But that’s not saying much.

        I may have had to keep a few of the waypoints of the trail in my head for, oh, a week or so, just long enough to scribble it on a history test. Then that information was immediately cleared out to make way for whatever other junk we had to temporarily memorize next chapter.

        Only a vague, blurry notion that the Oregon Trail A) existed and B) was a trail to (presumably) somewhere in Oregon remains with me today. Oregon City is certainly not a part of that notion.

        Not to shit on the Oregon Trail or Oregon City in particular, of course. I would be truly baffled to meet anyone that retained, in significant detail, even a tenth of what any grade school history class purportedly taught them.

      • sping@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        2·
        4 days ago

        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.

  • Chulk@lemmy.mlEnglish
    911·
    5 days ago

    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.

  • nfh@lemmy.world
    631·
    4 days ago

    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

  • Fondots@lemmy.world
    46·
    4 days ago

    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)

    • Liz@midwest.socialEnglish
      11·
      3 days ago

      A good number of these are examples where most people don’t actually know that the name comes from a town. I feel like they shouldn’t count.

  • ben_dover@lemmy.ml
    9·
    3 days ago

    we have a town called “Fucking” with only a few hundred people living there. the town sign gets stolen once a month

  • Bassman1805@lemmy.world
    642·
    5 days ago

    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.

    • collapse_already@lemmy.mlEnglish
      15·
      5 days ago

      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.

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
      1·
      3 days ago

      Not my experience, as a Canadian. I’m guessing Europe is a bit more ignorant, but they’ll still know about the other big cities and basic regions like the South. In the third world you might be right. No clue about East Asia.

      • Bassman1805@lemmy.world
        41·
        4 days ago

        “Panama isn’t about a city, it’s the stage name of a stripper from Albuquerque!”

        • David Lee Roth
        • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
          11·
          4 days ago

          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.

  • rmuk@feddit.ukEnglish
    151·
    4 days ago

    In the UK it’s got to be the City of London. Famous for being an ancient city established by the Romans and awash with history, now one of the world’s biggest financial centers with a modern skyline of famously distinctive skyscrapers. It’s home to some world-famous landmarks like Saint Paul’s Cathedral and Tower Bridge, and has a population of about 10,000.

    The City of London is not to be confused with London, London, London or London.

  • Enkrod@feddit.org
    34·
    4 days ago

    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.

    • Joe Dyrt@lemmy.ml
      11·
      4 days ago

      I went to school on base, grades 1-4, mid 1960s. My takeaway: planes with Ramjets!

      • filtoid@lemmy.ml
        4·
        3 days ago

        I thought so too before moving here, but there’s two cities, and a lot of empty space (in the north in particular) with lots of towns and villages, it’s not like Monaco or the Vatican City in that regard.

        That being said, it’s still all very close together, you can drive from the northern most point to the south in about 1.5-2 hours.

        The funniest thing I’ve learned about the geography is that there is a North/South divide where people from either don’t trust people from the other.