What is the smallest city in your country that everyone can still instantly recognise the name of? What is it famous for?

NateNate60@lemmy.world to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 139 points –

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.

252

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

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.

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

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.

Ocean City is the new Atlantic City anyway.

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

I think the game ended in The Dalles didn't it?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Similar to how more people have heard of Lockerbie than any other Scottish town of 5000 people.

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

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.

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.

Van Halen and Spring Break dictates that everyone knows Panama city.

Population of under 36,000.

"Panama isn't about a city, it's the stage name of a stripper from Albuquerque!"

  • David Lee Roth

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.

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

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)

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.

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

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

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

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

I actually used to own a cellphone and tyres from Nokia at the same time.

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

I didn't even know there were multiple villages in Luxembourg. I kinda thought it was a city-state.

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.

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.

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

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

I can't think of a smaller city in the US that fits "so many have heard of it"

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.

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

Yellowknife has a population of 20,000. Is that considered small enough?

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.

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..

Banff is what I was looking for in this list (pop ~8300). Not many places in this country are 'acting Canadian' anymore.

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.

Charlottetown is a good answer actually. Bigger than I thought though, 40k people.

Paris. It's also a city in Texas.

I see you and raise, Las Vegas, NM.

Cairo, IL (Population 1,505)

Pronounced kæro (K air o)

Pronounced kæro (K air o)

Comically, in Latin the æ would be pronounced with a sound like “ai” in “aisle,” so kæro would be pretty much the same as how you would expect to say Cairo.

(Fun fact, in Latin “Caesar” is pronounced very similarly to “Kaiser,” and is where the word “Kaiser” comes from.)

I’ve always heard it pronounced “Kay-roe”. 🤷

We also have a Paris in Ontario in Canada .... nice place next to the water and it even has the Eiffel Tower (painted as a mural on a storefront)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

I was under the impression that Pripyat was the town?

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.

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

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.

It might not count as a city but Nome Alaska has the Iditarod with only, 3700 people. Or maybe some famous battlefield, Gettysburg has 7100 people. A ski resort like Aspen could count with 7000. We all had to memorize state capitals so maybe somewhere like Montpelier, Vermont has more recognition but has 7800 people.

Jeez, I had no idea Aspen and Montpelier were so small.

Aspen has been experiencing a deep housing crisis for years. They have to bus in most of their workers from nearby towns because no one who has to work for a living can afford to live in Aspen. Now there's a worker shortage because no one can afford to live in the outlying towns either.

Idk about Montpelier but Aspen is kind of connected to a more populated area in the Roaring Fork valley.

The Roaring Fork Valley has like 50k or 40k total. Maybe more if you throw in some of Colorado Valley towns like Rifle and Silt.

Sturgis also has a population of around 7,000, and has a pretty significant cultural awareness because of its annual motorbiking event

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

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.

By population, and not land area, certain more remote geographic places are well known but have quite a low population. 'Everyone' is a high bar, but most adults in Australia would know the following places (ordered from smaller population but slightly less known to higher population):

  • Wittenoom, WA - population 0 - well known in Australia for being heavily contaminated with dangerous blue asbestos (which used to be mined there until the 60s), and having been de-gazetted and removed from maps to discourage tourism to it.
  • Coober Pedy, SA - population 1437 - well known in Australia for its underground homes and opal production.
  • Alice Springs, NT - population 25,912 - well known for being near the centre of Australia in the rangelands (outback) - most larger population centres in Australia are coastal.

I reckon Port Arthur is a solid contender with its low population of 251 (known for being the site of a mass shooting that led to significant changes in Australian gun laws). It is fading in name recognition as time goes on though, after all that was approaching 30 years ago and lots of people have been born since then.

My top pick however would be Bega with its population of 5013 and the name recognition the cheese factory has brought. It's hard to go past a name that's printed on cheese (and assorted other products now) in the vast majority of supermarkets across Australia, and they even export overseas to get a bit of international cachet.

Bega is sister city to Littleton, CO. A town famous for the Columbine school shooting in 1998.

As a non Australian, I didn't know wittenoom, but I'm pretty sure I know of it from the old videos of asbestos shoveling competitions that went around a few years back.

I think the smallest Australian town I know is oodnadatta, but I don't know why I know it. I also had to look up if "nullarbor" was a city, or just a place name, so idk if that counts.

Wittenoom, WA - population 0

I didn't instantly recognise the name, but I've heard the story.

Coober Pedy, SA - population 1437

This is a very solid one.

@gnu@lemmy.zip beat me to the punch with Port Arthur, and I think they've hit the nail on the head there. Although, as they note, maybe the name recognition isn't there for younger generations.

Here's some suggestions that haven't been made yet:

If you mean people from my country.... All of them.

New Zealand only has like 10 actual cities. It is not some great feat of memory to know them all.

What's your population threshold for city, here? Are there just a ton of rural people? It feels like a major country.

50k people

Looking at this list some are dubious. e.g. Hibicus Coast (#9) has been swallowed up by Auckland (#1), I would have called it a part of Auckland, much like Manakau City, which isn't on the list.

Lower Hutt (#6) and Upper Hutt (#18) are on the list but Petone is not, geographically they are part of the same long valley and can almost all be considered part of Wellington like Manakau City is part of Auckland.

But you also get places like Masterton (#28), feels city like, since it is the largest settlement in the region but really it is a big town, it takes up a huge area though. Mainly services the farming communities around it.

Wow. And you still have >5 million people? This list goes all the way down to what I'd call not quite villages, but very small towns (although your link is broken, you need to add the Wikipedia part).

Thanks, fixed the link.

When you consider that the top 5 on that list take up 50% of the population. Auckland continues to grow, and at 30% of the population already, it has an crazy effect on the economic decisions in the country.

It is also growing geographically, eventually Auckland and Hamilton will merge somewhere around Huntly (#50).

Huh, so it does. It looks like it shouldn't at first, my bad.

Have you had any luck with the urban sprawl? We've brought in a bunch of urban densification stuff recently in Canada, and NZ was cited as an example to follow.

Auckland is the definition of sprawl.

A bunch of laws were past on the last few years to combat it, but we find see the effects for decades to come.

I remember going to Auckland in the 90s and being amazed how low everything was considering it's size. Wellington was vertical. Auckland was horizontal.

At least, that's how it felt.

Matamata is really nice.

Agreed, but at fewer than 10k people, it is not exactly a city.

Going a little further north, I spent a lot of my teenage years in Athenree... Current population 920.. It has grown since I left.

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.

iThe City of London might be one, it has a very small resident population, but I dont know how many people know that it is a separate city from London. It's famos for being chock full of c*nts most of the day.

It’s famos for being chock full of c*nts most of the day.

Also how it's eerily dead on the weekends.

Not my country, but maybe Tipperary? It only has a population of 5k.

Blarney beats Tipperary in this scenario.

What's Blarney?

A small town/suburb in Cork. Also the home of the Blarney Stone and the origin of the word 'blarney'.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blarney_Stone https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blarney https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blarney

Not a bad reach for a town of around 2k population.

I kissed the blarney stone once, disgusting business. I lay down, half my body hanging out under the parapet, while a man held on to my legs. Reached up my head and put my lips on the stone. What was I thinking?!?

In the UK and a city? Probably Liverpool and because of The Beatles.

A Town? Well it certainly used to be Lockerbie where Pan-Am flight 103 crashed after a terrorist bombing just before Christmas 1988. It was on it's way from London to New York.

Probably not known by the younger generations though.

I guess the one that pretty much everyone knows in Germany is Buxtehude. It is being used as the poster child for a backwards town, far away from cities. Which is funny because neither is it backwards, remote or even very small. With a population of 40k it’s relatively large, compared to many other places in Germany, even just right next to Buxtehude. It is not far from Hamburg and its historic core is worth a visit. I think the name itself is the reason why it is being made fun of so much. Though there are so many other, much quirkier named towns in Germany but it somehow became Buxtehude.

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

I thought they changed their name? Isn't it called "Fugging" now?

yeah it looks like it, I've searched for "bad fucking" on Google maps and it returned Fugging

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

Don't forget being lost in River crossings.

Not a city as much as part of a city, but Coney Island is pretty well known. I was recently speaking to someone in Colombia and even they knew of it!

(I'm part of the sideshow cast there ☺️)

The village "Wacken" is well known in Germany because they hold one of the worlds largest anual Heavy-Metal festivals. They have a population of around 2000, the festival regularly attracts around 80,000 people.

Regina, the city that rhymes with fun!

In Denmark it's probably Snave (No English Wikipedia page for it). Population is a whopping 211 people. It was popularized in a series of commercials for a Danish cellular carrier. The concept was so popular that there even was a movie. I haven't seen it, but the reviews seems to suggest it could be fun to watch... If you are drunk enough.

The word "snave" in Danish can somewhat be translated to snogging in English. Heavy kissing. Which has led to the city having massive problems with theft of their signs.

Back when I was in Russia I'd say it'd be Suzdal, famous for the density of churches and other traditional architecture; or Tarusa, known for that one song that everyone seems to know a couple of lines from, Gorodok (here is a random rendition I found just now), both with just under 10k pop according to the wiki. And, as a bit of a stretch since it's not a town and most people would call it Solovki, Solovetsky settlement, famous for being a prison, with about 800 people. Also Oymyakon with under 600 people, the coldest settlement on earth if you're into that sort of thing.

Now in Georgia, I'd say Borjomi with just over 10k pop famous for its water, and Bakuriani (just over 1800 people) for its water and the ski resort. Again a bit of a stretch, but I guess everyone in Georgia at least also knows the ski resort of Gudauri at just under 100 people, as well as mountain resorts of Gomismta and Bakhmaro, both with no permanent residents due to the rough winters. Geography nerds will also be familiar with Ushguli, (arguably) the highest inhabited settlement in Europe, population 220.

I've actually heard of Oymyakon, just as a Canadian who knows geography facts. Ushguli is new information, though. (There's definitely higher on other continents)

Recently learning more about Georgia given the current political situation. Beautiful and fascinating place that would be great to visit one day. How are the ski resorts? I'm from BC in Canada and spoiled for choice, but snowboarding in Georgia would be quite the trip!

If I'm honest it's breathtakingly beautiful. I've been around most of Europe and some of Asia, and the only comparable places are Swiss Alps and the Himalayas; however, Georgia is much cheaper than the former and more developed/safe than the latter. It's also quite tiny but heterogeneous: within a day's drive you can go from (slightly underwhelming) Black Sea through amazing forests into wild mountains, back down to vineyards and sunflower fields, through a volcanic plateau with otherworldly landscapes and then bathe in hot springs under the starry sky. There's an insane density of buildings and ruins from dozens of different cultures and epochs, all the way from bronze age to medieval Georgian to Russian colonial style to Soviet-era constructivism. I don't drink wine but I've heard that it's quite amazing too. My only gripes is that the country might be backsliding into authoritarian rule, and the locals are welcoming but "conservative" (bigoted) to the extent that it's straight up dangerous for LGBT people to visit.

Chicken, Alaska. Population: 12
I'd argue that everyone recognises "Chicken".

Fun fact: The settlers wanted to name their town "Ptarmigan" after the birds that were abundant in the area.
But none of them knew the correct spelling, and they didn't want to embarass themselves.

Congratulations, you played yourself.

Wąchock in Poland, (in)famous for being the place where tons of jokes happen, population around 2800.

Also Jeruzal, though known under its fictional name of Wilkowyje, the place where famous TV show "Ranczo" was made, population around 340.

Lajitas, Texas, which once elected as their mayor a goat that drank beer, has a population of 75.

Terlingua, Texas, as made famous by Jerry Jeff Walker and home of the Terlingua International Chili Cook-off, has a population of 78.

Luckenbach, Texas, as made famous by Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, has a population of 3.

Edit: I just realised the question was recognising the name of the city, not recognising city based on a picture...

Probably Svolvær/Lofoten with a population of ~4700. It doesn't have the official status of "City" in Norway though.

What do you consider small? A lot of people know Cupertino California because Apple are based there, but it's only got a population of 57k. It's arguably more recognizable than the closest major city (San Jose), which has a population of nearly 1 million.

I wouldn't count it, as it's still in the San Jose metropolitan area... same reason why I didn't count Wagah in my reply. It's too close to Lahore.

San Jose metro area is enormous though. For example I'd consider Gilroy (which is famous for its garlic) as being completely separate from San Jose even though it's well within San Jose's metro area.

Yeah, no Tim, nobody's ever sung a song about getting to Cupertino

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).

How about Jokkmokk?

Strong contender! Definitely less populated, but I think also less well known?

Ok good point, maybe the kids today never heard Jokkmokks-Jocke?

I definitely recognized "Huskvarna" for some reason, but didn't know its location or why I would have recognized it before reading your comment. I haven't lived in Sweden or a place that would have been very easy for me to get to Sweden from.

Gruyères, Switzerland. 2000 inhabitants. Famous for the famous Swiss cheese of the same name.

Hallstatt - Austria

The city so beautiful that the Chinese copied it.

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 don't know about the smallest, but I've always thought that Santa Fe, New Mexico has an outsized influence on everything from food to art to architecture and culture. I visited last year and it was much smaller than I envisioned, partly because there are local regulations on building height to keep from ruining the charm of the city.

For NM I'd say Roswell; 5th largest city (48k population) but well known b/c aliens

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.

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

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

The New Orleans French Quarter is easy to spot.

Pueblo, CO from tv commercials or maybe Walla Walla, WA from Bugs Bunny.

I haven't seen a TV ad in years; who's out there talking about Pueblo?

Walla Walla Washington! It was one of ten airports (not sure exact number, but few!) in the first release of MS Flight Simulator. Also Yakima.

Here in Illinois is Woodstock, at ~25,600 (2020 per Wikipedia). It was the town where Groundhog Day was filmed. There's even some small road signs here and there mentioning it for the rare tourist who comes to see it. Smallest place in the state I can think of, though there's smaller towns that have been used for movies.

Some upcoming off-brand Hallmark x-mas movie will feature local tourist trap town Long Grove IL, pop ~ 8,300 (2020 per Wikipedia). The director grew up near there so knew about it and thought it'd be perfect for his movie.

Well, Brazil is such a huge country and there are lots of smallest cities with still huge population.

Unfornately i would have to say that the smallest one and most famous would probably be because of some recent disaster and one I can remember is Brumadinho. Less than 40k people, a city destroyed after a dam collapsed and a lot of mud flooded everywhere, 5 years ago

Vulcan, Alberta.

Famous because of a spaceship that landed there once, I think.

Some people with pointed ears may have also been involved, but I would replicate that with a grain of salt. I haven't really looked into it.

As much as I love Vulcan, AB... based on the qualifiers for this post, it is disqualified by Dildo, Newfoundland.

Winnipeg, Canada (pop. 850k) has a famous namesake in Winnie the Pooh (who was named after Winnipeg) and has been in the Simpsons.

The Simpsons - That's it, back to Winnipeg!

850k isn't really small though.

It's still small for a city, especially a capital city. However, it's bigger than Regina 😄

Your "small city" has more people than 5 US states

It's about the same population as San Francisco.

Someone won a trip to San Fransico on LMAD yesterday. My hat is a boot.

Darwin, Australia.

Famous for being bombed by the Japanese repeatedly during World War 2

I'd go with Port Arthur, Tasmania. 251 people from the 2016 census and the massacre is still burned into many people's memories.

Bobcaygeon, population 3,500.

I think The Tragically Hip are mostly famous with Canadians? Did they have much international success?

Edit: I thought the question meant people around the world but I guess it could also mean just the people in your own country..

Aramoana here in New Zealand. It has a population in the low hundreds and it is famous for a horrible massacre in 1990. The cops here don't usually have guns and in a little place like that there are often only a handful of police that are anywhere in the general region.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramoana_massacre

For foreigners, probably Abbottabad (population: 275,890) due to being the site of Osama Bin Laden's compound.

For Pakistanis themselves, it's a bit harder to determine, as I'm not able to find reliable population statistics for smaller settlements. However, some contenders are probably Nathia Gali, Chitral, Skardu and Ziarat. All of these towns are in the northern mountainous regions of Pakistan, which don't have as much population density as e.g. the plains of Punjab. They're also fairly popular tourist destinations for Pakistanis who want to take a break from the heat. Ziarat could be especially famous, as Muhammad Ali Jinnah (founder of Pakistan) spent some of his last days in a cottage there. It even appears on the 100-rupee note.

Puerto Hurraco. Population 100. Everybody in Spain recognises its name because of a shooting that got burned into the collective mind.

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

Hell, Michigan in the US definitely has a shot.

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.

In Slovenia I believe Sevnica (4.5k population) - home town of Melania Trump - would be the smallest most recognizable place by the world.

But Slovenia is small enough even Kostanjevica na Krki with 802 or Vače with 421 population is easily recognizable by Slovenians.

Davos switzerland. (WEF) (10k) Mariana brazil. (Known for a ecological disaster). (60k)

Probably Dildo, Newfoundland.

You know why.

Edit: Actually, I think Dawson City is smaller. It's famous for being a big city back during the gold rush, despite being up near the arctic circle.

Well there are only really two where I'm at. Smallest one probably most well known for being the setting for a comedy TV show or it's wall.

The smallest settlement listed on Wikipedia is known for a bridge.

Definitely Altschauerberg, home of the country's most prolific performance artist

In France it might be Y (population : 89), famous for having a one-letter name. Far from "anyone can still instantly recognise the name" but still probably much more well-known than any other town this size.

Otherwise idk, feels like the only french city everyone would instantly recognise the name of is Paris tbh.

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.

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

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

ottawa

I think a decent number of people know about Dildo, NL

Or, like, Saskatoon. Ottawa is smaller than Toronto but it's still big.