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.

    • Notyou@sopuli.xyz
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      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.

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

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        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.

      • 69420@lemmy.world
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        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.

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

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        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.

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        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.

      • evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world
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        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.

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        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.

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        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.

    • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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      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.

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    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.

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    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

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    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.

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      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.

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      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.

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

        • David Lee Roth
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          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.

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

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    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)

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      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.

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      I’d try Bodom, population 0, if other than cities are allowed.

      Or possibly Santa’s village, population 2 (if you exclude the elves)

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      Does it count if you know the thing it’s known for but not that it’s a place?

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        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.

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    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.

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

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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.

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

      • Hobbes_Dent@lemmy.world
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        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.

    • 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…

    • 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.

    • H4CK3RN4M3D4N63R570RM@lemmy.ca
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      Banff is what I was looking for in this list (pop ~8300). Not many places in this country are ‘acting Canadian’ anymore.

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    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.

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      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.

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      Admittedly my WW2 history knowledge is quite lacking, but I don’t recognise Vichy because of the war stuff.

      But I do recognise Vichy! Because we have a sub-type of mineral water in Sweden that is named after Vichy, “Vichyvatten”. Wikipedia tells me the original was from a spring near Vichy, hence the name.

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        The two facts are linked: Vichy was chosen as the new capital after the occupation of Paris because of the springs. There were a lot of hotels and means of communication because of the luxurious spas.

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      Nice one, didn’t think of that ! I suggested the one-letter town Y (population : 89), which is obviously much less well-known, but is also much smaller.

      Edit : just realised, the airport city Roissy-en-France at under 3k inhabitants is a huge contender too that wasn’t mentioned

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    Wacken, Germany.

    Population: 2110

    Home to one of the biggest metal festivals in the world with something between 70k and 120k people. I think Tickets are limited to 70k currently but the whole area is bascially transformed for a week

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      What’s more well known around the world, Wacken or Rammstein? Because Wacken is smaller than Ramstein and would be the better answer but my guess is that Rammstein are more known.

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        Rammstein is not a town though, Ramstein(-Miesenbach) is.

        I think a good chunk of US american military folks are familiar with Ramstein air base, less so Ramstein-Miesenbach. Internationally I’d imagine even less of either.

        Even plenty Rammstein (band) fans aren’t familiar with the origin of the name, nor the town near the airbase :)

        I’d comfortably take a bet that Wacken rings more bells around the globe.

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    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.

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        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.

    • thepreciousboar@lemm.ee
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      Pretty sure that quote refers to Prypiat. Chornobyl had around 14k people living at the moment of the evacuation, according to wikipedia