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.

  • Mubelotix
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    8 days ago

    Gergovie. The place where we defeated romans 2000 years ago. Doesn’t even exist anymore

  • Enkrod
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    9 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
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      18 days ago

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

  • @Hobbes_Dent@lemmy.world
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    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.

    • @Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.works
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      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.

    • @Today@lemmy.world
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      79 days ago

      Omg…i spent 4 hours in Gander one evening, so it took about 20 hours to go Dallas -> Chicago -> Gander-> Chicago.

    • @RoquetteQueen@sh.itjust.works
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      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…

  • @ben_dover@lemmy.ml
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    88 days ago

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

  • davel [he/him]
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    469 days ago

    Gibraltar has a population of 32,000, which by some definitions is too small to be considered a city.

    • @nevetsg@aussie.zone
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      18 days ago

      For Australia I would go with Snowtown for the bodies in barrels. Or maybe Kendall where William Tyrrell disappeared. Both towns are pretty small.

  • I legitimately though Oregon was a State, I didn’t know it was also a city.

    From my country I’m going to be generous and say Barcelona. Second biggest city here. I doubt next bigger cities are universally known.

    • @fireweed@lemmy.world
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      28 days ago

      I think Seville and Pamplona are well known, for the Barber of Seville and the running of the bulls respectively.

    • @CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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      7 days ago

      Granada is pretty famous for tourist reasons, but unfortunately will be confused with Grenada, so it probably doesn’t count. Ibiza, maybe?

  • @Chulk@lemmy.ml
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    879 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.

  • filtoid
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    399 days ago

    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.

    Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area

      • filtoid
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        57 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.

  • @Akasazh@feddit.nl
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    149 days ago

    In the Netherlands is probably Giethoorn, the ‘Venice of the North’ which has many canals instead of roads and is very touristy. It has 2.900 inhabitants

  • @Philote@lemmy.ml
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    49 days ago

    Forks, Washington population of ~7000 made very notable due to the twilight series. Or Astoria, Oregon population of ~10,000 made famous by the Goonies.