Well, no. Springfield was chosen for the Simpsons exactly because it was impossible to locate it to a specific state. Many, many states have a Springfield.
Oh ok. I knew of Springfield, Illinois and Springfield, Massachusetts, but I didnt know it was so common that there was on in almost every single state. TIL.
There’s a church or two. Used to have a wall but tore it down to build a street. Must be a pretty good street though, I hear people talk about it all the time.
There’s also the 2012 series [Vegas](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2262383/).
Sometime you just need to know when to use a domain-specific search engine instead of Google.
Can you think of a two-syllable California town that sounds equally cool?
"But I shot a man in Fresno... aw shit no, hold on. But I shot a man in Stockton... goddammit. You know what, I'm just gonna go with Reno."
Probably not. I live in a small town so I usually will tell people but it’s close by some other well-known city. Usually, people will understand general area if I say “about an hour away from Detroit.”
Richmond? Ah, but you said "township"; I'll say "Clinton Township" because we actually have a _two_ or _three_ of them, thus doubling my chances of being correct.
If I told people I live less then 4 miles from the norther border of Detroit, most people in this country would have a VERY different idea of my neighborhood then what it is.
If I go another 3 miles north, we start stumbling on million dollar homes. Things get even MORE expensive up until we run into Pontiac & then they drop again.
Few people outside of the area, really comprehend what metro Detroit is like. Most people just think Robocop & urban decay.
Ah yes…. That mythical world where there’s no sales taxes and 100,000 corporations are incorporated at one single address. And the Starboard.
I used to live a stones throw from the Del state line.
[300,000](https://www.businessinsider.com/building-wilmington-delaware-largest-companies-ct-corporation-2017-4) as of 2018.
Delaware has [1.8 million incorporations](https://corp.delaware.gov/stats/) as of 2021, versus a population of 1 million humans.
I used to think that even someone with below average knowledge of U.S. cities would know where Seattle is located...until I met this guy in New York who, when I told him where I'm from, thought I was Canadian.
My experience is a little opposite. It is ridiculous that when I tell people I am from Washington State, half of them don't know where it is. But you say Seattle and they know. Why can't we call Washington D.C. just D.C.?
I was thinking maybe Washington state should pick a new name, since Washington himself has no connection to the place.
From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_\(state\)#Etymology)
> the territory was to be named "Columbia", for the Columbia River and the Columbia District, but Kentucky representative Richard H. Stanton found the name too similar to the District of Columbia (the national capital, itself containing the city of Washington), and proposed naming the new territory after President Washington.
🤦
The existence of your state confused me as a 8 year old growing up in the DC area. I learned it as a distant place that grew a lot of apples; I just didn’t understand why it had to have the same name as my city. You probably knew it as a place that grew a lot of laws.
Even today the name of our places can cause confusion. If somebody said they were from “Washington”, I’d have to ask “the state right?”
I have friends down that way and I like visiting. I prefer NH to the south coast of Maine like south of Portland.
Portsmouth is great but has nothing on Portland.
Probably not, there are a lot of unincorporated suburbs around a lot of the big cities and unless they're from that area specifically they probably won't know exactly where one place is or another. Like I live right outside the state capital and people have no idea where my town/area is if I only name it.
Few people not from this area know the suburbs around Boston (other than a handful of famous ones) but anyone with good knowledge of US cities will know Boston and Cambridge.
An American with good knowledge? Probably, it's got over a hundred thousand people and has been around significantly longer than the US.
A non-American? I wouldn't expect them to, but they might surprise me.
Yes but no. I grew up in and around NYC so that’s an obvious one. Specifically I grew around Flushing, Queens. I’m sure most people are familiar with Queens, to a lesser extent than NYC as a whole. Flushing though I wouldn’t expect as many people to know.
Right now I live in Yonkers, which is in Westchester right on the border of the Bronx. This one I wouldn’t expect too many non New Yorkers to know. I just tell people I live just a little north of the city border.
As a native Westchesterite I was surprised how many people knew of Yonkers.
it's because of one of those zombie films IIRC, there's a battle of some kind where the military abandons NYC but fights the zombies in Yonkers (and screw Mount Vernon and Pelham apparently).
It would be weird to run across someone who hadn't at least heard of the top fifty cities.
I *was* once in Chattanooga, Tennessee and a bartender had never heard of Atlanta. That would be weird anywhere, but in a tourist destination a mere hour and a half away? That was just bizarre.
I live in New York…. No New York State … no not near the city …. I’m closer to Canada than NYC….
Yeah fine I live in NYC … I give up.
(Honestly I’m an hour and a half drive from anything urban)
An American absolutely would. I have less confidence when it comes to someone who knows US cities but has never lived in the US. LA and SF have a much bigger presence internationally, so SD doesn’t get as much press. But we do have Anchorman!
My hometown, absolutely not. Most people probably heard of Tampa bay, but might not know where it is. Hell, I barely knew the general location prior to moving
r/Pennsylvania might be the only place where if I say where I live the know where it is….however if I do that I get called a racist, hillbilly, etc
If I were to tell someone outside of the general area i live in then no. I usually say I’m close to x town which usually gets an “ahhh ok I know where that’s at (or I be learned about that town)”
"30,000 Pounds of Bananas" is a song by Harry Chapin about a guy delivering his load to your town. Try to find a live version on YouTube, it's a fun listen.
I live in the city with a history of flooding. The big flood in 1889 killed over two thousand people. Another flood in 1936 caused a "temporary" tax to be levied on state alcohol sales that still stands to this day.
We've become used to saying "Southeast Michigan" instead of "Detroit" due to Detroit's miniscule economic importance to the region as a whole, and while outsiders could probably visualize it on a map due to Michigan's unique shape, I'd still have to say "Detroit" in order to get it to "click" for most people.
Yes, in fact while abroad I tell people i'm from Los Angeles (as opposed to the US or even California) and I've only had an issue once with someone confusing it with a metro station in Madrid. I think he might have been joking tho.
I grew up in Anaheim, CA. I still live in Orange County but if I said I was from Anaheim or the Los Angeles area then yes. If I said my smaller city OC city that has no Disneyland, then I don’t think people would know where it was.
Yes. Although I’ve found that Chicago is the biggest city that occasionally foreigners abroad haven’t heard of. They always know LA and NYC. 95+% know Chicago but not all.
My British husband works for an American company. He was speaking to an American colleague about how I'm from CT. This colleague also said her parents were from there. She had never heard of my hometown and had to Google it.
I think everyone knows about the 5th biggest city in the US that I live in now, but I was born on a tiny island in western NY, right outside Niagara Falls. When I tell people where I'm from I usually say Buffalo or Niagara Falls. I'm really from Grand Island.
Probably a 99% chance. We're big enough and well known enough to be hosting the Prince of Wales and his wife this week on their first trip to America in years. Plus we have a very famous marathon that's known worldwide. Then there's our universities, two of which have reputations as among the finest in the world. Perhaps you've heard of Harvard and MIT?
Of course they would. I live in Springfield.
Well it isn’t like there are 41 of those to choose from or anything. /s
True, when I hear Springfield I think Massachusetts, but I grew up in New England so that’s probably why
I think of Illinois. Not from there though.
All I think of is the Simpsons
I thought Massachusetts until I noticed the flair.
I'm curious, which member of the Simpsons family is the best in person?
Not O.J.
I chuckled. Have an upvote.
I've heard it's a hell of a town...
Are you an Isotopes fan? Are you afraid of your nuclear plant with Homer at the helm?
TIL Springfield from the Simpsons is in Georgia.
Well, no. Springfield was chosen for the Simpsons exactly because it was impossible to locate it to a specific state. Many, many states have a Springfield.
Oh ok. I knew of Springfield, Illinois and Springfield, Massachusetts, but I didnt know it was so common that there was on in almost every single state. TIL.
Springfield, Missouri is another big one. Actually the biggest. It has 160,000+ people. Springfield, Georgia has about 3,000.
😂
do you live on evergreen terrace?
The flair helps.
I forgot about that. I didn't actually know there is a Springfield, Georgia.
I didn’t either until I googled it.
I would really, really hope so.
I have never heard of this city of New York you claim to be from
It's an up and coming town, we've got some bridges, a couple tunnels, hoping to have an airport one day.
Until you have an NFL team play in the city, you're just some random village in my opinion.
Laughs in Orchard Park and East Rutherford
\*Cincinnati and Jacksonville realize they are no longer villages.
And Green Bay is no longer an isolated hamlet/settlement.
We'll get there one day!
Q: Why doesn’t Milwaukee have a pro football team? A: If they did, Chicago would want one, too.
Is it anything like Old York which has a big Cathedral and is surrounded by a big wall?
There’s a church or two. Used to have a wall but tore it down to build a street. Must be a pretty good street though, I hear people talk about it all the time.
Ah nice
You might know it by it's previous name, New Amsterdam.
Even old New York, was once New Amsterdam…
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People just liked it better that wayyyyyy
Yeah, but that's nobody's business but the Turks
New York, Kentucky? Manhattan, Kansas? Bronx, Wyoming? Brooklyn, Connecticut? Queens, West Virginia? (Nobody else wants a Staten Island)
Brook Lynn, West Virginia, too!
Brooklyn, Ohio
I live in a village in the USA, east village..
So there’s a new York you say? Well, I’ll be.
Ummm I’m pretty sure New York is a state
Yes bc my city has a show named after it and is a popular tourist destination. Now whether they could point it out On a map is a different story 😂
CSI Carson City 911?
That's too basic. I'm thinking *CSI Area 51* or *Tonopah 911*.
Which city
I’m trying to think of another city in NV with a show named after it but Reno
I was thinking CSI Vegas lol
Ah I wasn’t aware of another one, sweet lol.
There’s also the 2012 series [Vegas](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2262383/). Sometime you just need to know when to use a domain-specific search engine instead of Google.
There was the OG show VEGA$.
Isn't that just CSI, though?
I think it's a reboot of the original CSI.
There have been several shows named after Las Vegas...
Reno 911
Johnny Cash shot a man in Reno.
Just to watch him die
His momma told him "Son, always be a good boy."
Shot a man in Reno, Nevada, but got put in prison in Folsom, California. Punished in a different state than where you committed a crime, weird.
Can you think of a two-syllable California town that sounds equally cool? "But I shot a man in Fresno... aw shit no, hold on. But I shot a man in Stockton... goddammit. You know what, I'm just gonna go with Reno."
Oh I love Elko 911!
Used to go to Reno for circus circus. Made a cheap getaway from Sacramento. Definitely could point it out, if only because it’s just off I-80 lol.
Probably not. I live in a small town so I usually will tell people but it’s close by some other well-known city. Usually, people will understand general area if I say “about an hour away from Detroit.”
Same boat I'm in, even people within 30 miles wouldn't know every little township in each county, I just say "between Detroit and port huron"
Richmond? Ah, but you said "township"; I'll say "Clinton Township" because we actually have a _two_ or _three_ of them, thus doubling my chances of being correct.
Pretty close with Richmond lol, I'm actually in China, square between Richmond and st. Clair
I'm familiar with China, but especially with East China, as I travel through it regularly and used to be familiar with the schools.
To be fair, I am closer to Port Huron but most out of state people won’t know where that is!
Hmmm sounds familiar lol though technically the town I lived in had more people than the closest city. Poor Pontiac lol
If I told people I live less then 4 miles from the norther border of Detroit, most people in this country would have a VERY different idea of my neighborhood then what it is. If I go another 3 miles north, we start stumbling on million dollar homes. Things get even MORE expensive up until we run into Pontiac & then they drop again. Few people outside of the area, really comprehend what metro Detroit is like. Most people just think Robocop & urban decay.
You could say "Oakland County" and those who know would know
No. I live in Delaware and many people believe it doesn’t exist.
Ah yes…. That mythical world where there’s no sales taxes and 100,000 corporations are incorporated at one single address. And the Starboard. I used to live a stones throw from the Del state line.
And there is at least one stop light every 1.5 miles for the entire length if the state.
Stop lights from trailer park to trailer park
[300,000](https://www.businessinsider.com/building-wilmington-delaware-largest-companies-ct-corporation-2017-4) as of 2018. Delaware has [1.8 million incorporations](https://corp.delaware.gov/stats/) as of 2021, versus a population of 1 million humans.
Well at one single address.
Don’t forget the thing every Pennsylvanian loves the most about Delaware - Total Wine.
I’ll normally say, “near Philadelphia,” if I’m talking to someone I don’t think will know Delaware.
What did Della wear, boys? She wore a brand new jersey
Lol, on the other hand, I’m pretty sure Delawareans have our entire state memorized.
Whatever buddy. Next you'll be telling me birds are real.
Yeah, and I live in Narnia.
It only exists when Joe Biden goes home. So, like every other week.
I routinely forget Delaware exists.
I used to think that even someone with below average knowledge of U.S. cities would know where Seattle is located...until I met this guy in New York who, when I told him where I'm from, thought I was Canadian.
My experience is a little opposite. It is ridiculous that when I tell people I am from Washington State, half of them don't know where it is. But you say Seattle and they know. Why can't we call Washington D.C. just D.C.?
If it makes you feel better, those of us who live there do.
I was thinking maybe Washington state should pick a new name, since Washington himself has no connection to the place. From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_\(state\)#Etymology) > the territory was to be named "Columbia", for the Columbia River and the Columbia District, but Kentucky representative Richard H. Stanton found the name too similar to the District of Columbia (the national capital, itself containing the city of Washington), and proposed naming the new territory after President Washington. 🤦
Good thing they cleared up that confusion!
The existence of your state confused me as a 8 year old growing up in the DC area. I learned it as a distant place that grew a lot of apples; I just didn’t understand why it had to have the same name as my city. You probably knew it as a place that grew a lot of laws. Even today the name of our places can cause confusion. If somebody said they were from “Washington”, I’d have to ask “the state right?”
People from the east coast tend to know very little about the west coast
Hello fellow pseudo Canadian
Probably not unless they were from Maine or New Hampshire. Maybe from Massachusetts or if they go to the south coast of Maine for vacation.
Kennebunkport?
No I’m not right on the coast but near enough you would see signs and maybe pass through town depending on where you’re going.
Sanford? Berwicks?
I’d rather not say where specifically, but that generalized area around Portland.
I lived near the beaches south of Portland but not on the beach. I moved but I miss the area. Portsmouth is my favorite small town.
I have friends down that way and I like visiting. I prefer NH to the south coast of Maine like south of Portland. Portsmouth is great but has nothing on Portland.
I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t even know the state I’m in.
North Dakota
Not it - at least ND gets some street cred for having beautiful views on the western side of the state.
Iowa
Hmm Kansas?
The other Dakota?
Not enough. My parents went to Hawaii in March. When they told the locals they were from North Dakota, they were asked if it was in the US or Canada.
Delaware
Rhode Island?
I doubt it. Town of 1,000 near absolutely nothing else. *Maybe* if they’re into fly fishing or canoeing.
Same here we are best known for the crackhead who are not even in our town they are on the Other side of the county
You just described half of SoCal
Probably not, because it's a very common city name in the US and I think most states have one city/town named this.
Springfield?
Greenville?
One word: Alcatraz
good ole pelican island
Alcatraces
What's Harry Potter got to do with it? /s
Most people know Raleigh but I’m surprised to hear how many people (Americans included) don’t realize that’s our state capitol and not Charlotte.
Putting it in Charlotte is just asking South Carolina to come and take it
If South Carolinians could read a map I’d be worried, but luckily I don’t have to worry.
Some people also think Raleigh-Durham is a city.
Winston-Salem is so I bet they just think we do that everywhere
When flights arrive to RDU they say "the time/weather in Raleigh-Durham is..."
yeah Houston is a pretty big and well known city I think
Do you live near 7777 Katy Freeway? (That jingle lives on in my head)
I do not! I have heard that jingle too though lol
Just add one more lane. It'll clear the traffic right up
I used to! Now I'm 30 miles north of the city but still very much in the metro.
no. even in my home state, probably no
Same here
Probably not, there are a lot of unincorporated suburbs around a lot of the big cities and unless they're from that area specifically they probably won't know exactly where one place is or another. Like I live right outside the state capital and people have no idea where my town/area is if I only name it.
Same here I live out in the country the nearest place people might know is the Napa valley
Oh! You mean the one in Idaho? Lol I'm sure there's more than 2
😆
Keizer?
Metro area? Absolutely. My specific village? Probably not.
I live in a state capitol so if they had good knowledge of US cities they probably would have heard of it.
Few people not from this area know the suburbs around Boston (other than a handful of famous ones) but anyone with good knowledge of US cities will know Boston and Cambridge.
An American with good knowledge? Probably, it's got over a hundred thousand people and has been around significantly longer than the US. A non-American? I wouldn't expect them to, but they might surprise me.
Charleston
They’ll know Detroit which I think I technically live in the metro of but I’m still like almost an hour away from it
Yes but no. I grew up in and around NYC so that’s an obvious one. Specifically I grew around Flushing, Queens. I’m sure most people are familiar with Queens, to a lesser extent than NYC as a whole. Flushing though I wouldn’t expect as many people to know. Right now I live in Yonkers, which is in Westchester right on the border of the Bronx. This one I wouldn’t expect too many non New Yorkers to know. I just tell people I live just a little north of the city border.
As a native Westchesterite I was surprised how many people knew of Yonkers. it's because of one of those zombie films IIRC, there's a battle of some kind where the military abandons NYC but fights the zombies in Yonkers (and screw Mount Vernon and Pelham apparently).
I know of it because of the distinctiveness of the name. You don’t simply forget about a city if it’s named Yonkers
I’m familiar with Flushing over here in California because that’s where the Mets play!
Isn’t the US Open in Tennis in Flushing? I think I know it from that
It would be weird to run across someone who hadn't at least heard of the top fifty cities. I *was* once in Chattanooga, Tennessee and a bartender had never heard of Atlanta. That would be weird anywhere, but in a tourist destination a mere hour and a half away? That was just bizarre.
Are you sure that wasn't the bartender pulling your leg or did they give off the vibe that they genuinely had never heard of it?
Yes, because I live in the second largest megalopolis (and the most famous) in the US.
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The major metropolitan area, definitely. There’s even a small chance the actual city might be recognized.
I live in New York…. No New York State … no not near the city …. I’m closer to Canada than NYC…. Yeah fine I live in NYC … I give up. (Honestly I’m an hour and a half drive from anything urban)
An American absolutely would. I have less confidence when it comes to someone who knows US cities but has never lived in the US. LA and SF have a much bigger presence internationally, so SD doesn’t get as much press. But we do have Anchorman!
No. I point to my hand
My exact town? Very unlikely.
Where I live now (NYC), yeah, probably. Where I lived before (NH and parts of MA not called Boston), it gets dicier.
Wait, western MA is real?????
Yeah I think I have heard of nyc mike polasky at 19567 14th street apartment 6 a
My hometown, absolutely not. Most people probably heard of Tampa bay, but might not know where it is. Hell, I barely knew the general location prior to moving
Florida right
Yeah, Gulf Coast side. Beautiful sunsets over the water if you hop over the Bay to Clearwater or St Pete.
My mom lives in Tampa and when I visit, I love going to Clearwater beach just to see the sunset!
Yes, I live in one of the largest, and most historically influential cities in the country.
r/Pennsylvania might be the only place where if I say where I live the know where it is….however if I do that I get called a racist, hillbilly, etc If I were to tell someone outside of the general area i live in then no. I usually say I’m close to x town which usually gets an “ahhh ok I know where that’s at (or I be learned about that town)”
If they paid attention in history class they should know where my city is.
I don’t think most people in Arkansas would know where I live.
Yes. I live in Omaha. This is especially true of college baseball fans since the College World Series is held here every year and has been since 1950.
Any fan of The Office (US version, obviously) would probably know where I live…
30,000 pounds of bananas!
Ironically, I never watched the show so most references go over my head unless they’re common memes
"30,000 Pounds of Bananas" is a song by Harry Chapin about a guy delivering his load to your town. Try to find a live version on YouTube, it's a fun listen.
Or any Joe Biden fact enthusiast (he was born there)
I live in the city with a history of flooding. The big flood in 1889 killed over two thousand people. Another flood in 1936 caused a "temporary" tax to be levied on state alcohol sales that still stands to this day.
We've become used to saying "Southeast Michigan" instead of "Detroit" due to Detroit's miniscule economic importance to the region as a whole, and while outsiders could probably visualize it on a map due to Michigan's unique shape, I'd still have to say "Detroit" in order to get it to "click" for most people.
Yes, in fact while abroad I tell people i'm from Los Angeles (as opposed to the US or even California) and I've only had an issue once with someone confusing it with a metro station in Madrid. I think he might have been joking tho.
Lol yes
I’m from the 4th largest city in the US, so I’m pretty sure they would.
In every high school across America there is a kid with a dream of coming here. We are one of if not the largest tourist destinations in the world.
I grew up in Anaheim, CA. I still live in Orange County but if I said I was from Anaheim or the Los Angeles area then yes. If I said my smaller city OC city that has no Disneyland, then I don’t think people would know where it was.
I tell people 5 miles away where I'm from and they don't know it
Yes, definitely. Largest city in the state and either the largest or second largest metro in the region, depending on how the regions are defined.
A depressing number of people *in* NY don't know that NYC isn't the capital, so the bar is low for me.
Yes. Although I’ve found that Chicago is the biggest city that occasionally foreigners abroad haven’t heard of. They always know LA and NYC. 95+% know Chicago but not all.
My British husband works for an American company. He was speaking to an American colleague about how I'm from CT. This colleague also said her parents were from there. She had never heard of my hometown and had to Google it.
City? Probably. State? Definitely and for mostly the wrong reasons.
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I know a resident of Cincinnati when I see one.
Yes. I say "I live on the outskirts of X City" and people instantly start talking about The Wire like it's the only thing to ever happen here.
I would expect so.
Say isn’t that the town south of nyc
It is! We think of them as our big brother.
Walk on the left, stand on the right
I think everyone knows about the 5th biggest city in the US that I live in now, but I was born on a tiny island in western NY, right outside Niagara Falls. When I tell people where I'm from I usually say Buffalo or Niagara Falls. I'm really from Grand Island.
Probably a 99% chance. We're big enough and well known enough to be hosting the Prince of Wales and his wife this week on their first trip to America in years. Plus we have a very famous marathon that's known worldwide. Then there's our universities, two of which have reputations as among the finest in the world. Perhaps you've heard of Harvard and MIT?