Asklemmy

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.

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

I’m in the US and I can’t say I’d heard of Oregon City before this post…

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.

Roswell, NM comes to mind. Tiny and yet most people will think of UFOs when they hear the name.

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.

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)

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.

Nokia, Finland, population 36,000. Cellphones, tyres, rubber boots, ...

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

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.

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

Fucking, Austria. Population of around 100 People. They renamed it to Fugging a few years ago

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

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.

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

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.

Hell, Michigan in the US definitely has a shot.

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.

Paris. It's also a city in Texas.

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.

Not my location, but Scranton, PA?

I'm not from there, but who doesn't know the name of Scunthorpe?

World recognition or in-country?

If world I'd guess Huskvarna (pop 24 000) for Sweden.

Known for having a company making chainsaws (among other things) named after it (Husqvarna). It is one of the two main brands of professional chainsaws (the other being Stihl).

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

Hell, Michigan

Dildo, Newfoundland, Canada: 803 people as of 2021.

Someone here mentioned Vulcan, Alberta - however given the qualifiers of country and size, its 1769 people disqualifies it.

Also, though I am a Trekkie myself and know that Vulcan is well known in those circles, it's virtually unheard of outside them.

Meanwhile, Dildo:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/odd-stories-of-2019-1.5389442

Probably Regina. And it’s famous for rhyming white schmamima.