Asklemmy

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

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

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.

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.

PANAMA!

Van Halen, spring break, population 35,600.

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.

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 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.

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)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.