"No, The Other One"

[SFBruin]

Another way is whether your city name is in the form of city, state, or just city in the Wikipedia article title.

For example, Daly City, which I don't think has an equivalent anywhere else, is titled as "Daly City, California", whereas Los Angeles, which shares its name with other cities, is titled as just "Los Angeles".

[Buckeye Native 001]

That might be an offshoot of following AP guidelines?

What little I remember from Copy Editing classes is that there's a handful of cities that don't need the state identifier in bylines because, like Los Angeles or San Francisco, they're well-enough known to the general public. For context, print journalism (at least when I was in j-school) is deliberately written to be understood by anyone with at least a third or fourth grade education.

Which begs the question: How many third or fourth graders know (or care?) about American cities aside from probably most of the people on this forum?

[SFBruin]

Oh, that's very possible. I never thought about guidelines for this sort of thing.

[Razor]

There's a Toronto Ohio, and an Ottawa Illinois..There's also an Ontario California. And (go figure), there are a few Springfields in Canada. One in Ontario, and a township in Manitoba at the very least. Will the real Springfield please stand up!

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by Razor

There's a Toronto Ohio, and an Ottawa Illinois..There's also an Ontario California. And (go figure), there are a few Springfields in Canada. One in Ontario, and a township in Manitoba at the very least. Will the real Springfield please stand up!

And.... Vancouver, Washington


One that tripped me up recently was Albany, OR, which like Albany, NY has an Amtrak station. Fuckers.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

One way to find out if your city's name has come to own itself is if a wikipedia search takes you directly to its wikipedia page or if it first takes you to a disambiguation page.

"Columbus" is the largest US city that I've found that takes you to a disambiguation page first, thanks in no small part to being named after Christopher Columbus.

If you omit the "D.C." from "Washington", you also get a disambiguation page.

Until about a year ago, this would have been Austin.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001

That might be an offshoot of following AP guidelines?

What little I remember from Copy Editing classes is that there's a handful of cities that don't need the state identifier in bylines because, like Los Angeles or San Francisco, they're well-enough known to the general public. For context, print journalism (at least when I was in j-school) is deliberately written to be understood by anyone with at least a third or fourth grade education.

Which begs the question: How many third or fourth graders know (or care?) about American cities aside from probably most of the people on this forum?

This tracks. Wikipedia changed theirs for Austin when the AP changed their style guideline for the city from Austin, Texas to simply Austin.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by craigs

Portland also takes you to a disambiguation page.

oh yeah, good call, don't know how i missed that obvious one.

so going by MSA size, i think "Portland" and "Columbus" are the #1 and #2 largest US cities that take you to a disambiguation page first. "San Jose" would be 3rd.


(I didn't include "Riverside", which does go to an disambiguation page, because I still struggle with seeing it as a full-fledged stand-alone MSA. it's really just LA sprawl, IMO.)

[Camelback]

There's a Washington, Ontario (looks like a tiny township of 25 homes?)
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Wa...2!4d-80.580555


and there's a Ottawa, IL (I searched for an Ottawa, WA, didn't find one, but that would've been cool.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ot...!4d-88.8425769

[MolsonExport]

Montréal, Ardèche
Montréal, Aude
Montréal, Gers
Montréal, Yonne
Montréal-la-Cluse, Ain
Montréal-les-Sources, Drôme
Villeneuve-lès-Montréal, Aude
Montréal (Crusader castle), Jordan
Montreal, Catalonia
Montreal Park, UK
Montreal, Missouri
Montreal, Wisconsin
Montreal River (Michigan)
Montreal River (Wisconsin-Michigan)
Montreal River, Ontario, a municipality
Montreal River (Algoma–Sudbury, Ontario)
Montreal River (Timiskaming District)
Montreal River (Saskatchewan)
Montreal Island (Nunavut)

Plus this little ol' place

dh

[SIGSEGV]

I just spent a few days in the UP. There, and on the way there, I ran into the following place names:

Belgium, WI
Cleveland, WI
Kiel, WI
Denmark, WI
Niagara, WI
Norway, MI
Florence, WI
Alberta, MI
Boston, MI
Wyoming, MI
Greenland, MI (especially hilarious since I was just in Greenland)

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

I just spent a few days in the UP. There, and on the way there, I ran into the following place names:

Belgium, WI
Cleveland, WI
Kiel, WI
Denmark, WI
Niagara, WI
Norway, MI
Florence, WI
Alberta, MI
Boston, MI
Wyoming, MI
Greenland, MI (especially hilarious since I was just in Greenland)

There is also a New Boston in Michigan.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

There is also a New Boston in Michigan.

and New Buffalo, MI is one of the more popular lake michigan beach towns for chicagoans as it's immediately north of the IN/MI border.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

and New Buffalo, MI is one of the more popular lake michigan beach towns for chicagoans as it's immediately north of the IN/MI border.

Yeah, some more that just came to mind: there is a Rochester in Oakland County, a New Baltimore and a New Haven in Macomb County, and a Plymouth in Wayne County.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

there is a Rochester in Oakland County,

and a Troy, MI in Oakland County as well.

and a Utica, MI next door in Macomb County.

northern detroit burbs had a little thing for upstate NY.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

and a Troy, MI in Oakland County as well.

and a Utica, MI next door in Macomb County.

northern detroit burbs had a little thing for upstate NY.

When I was younger, I always thought the Michigan cities of Troy and Utica were named for the Greek and Roman places (which they are, but indirectly). It wasn't until moving to NYS that I noticed how so many names of places in MI overlapped with upstate NY.

Troy, MI, appears to be the most populated Troy in the world now.

[Centropolis]

sometimes peeps get Carbondale and Chicago mixed,, cause of the C

[hipster duck]

Out of curiosity does anyone know when the custom of “City, State” started? Was it an invention of the US postal service?

In most European countries the custom is to differentiate cities with the same name by some geographical feature, like Frankfurt am Main (the big one) vs. Frankfurt an der Oder.

Or if you see a letter to the editor in a magazine, it usually signs off with the city and postal code, like

Bob Smith
Newcastle-upon-Tyne
NE5

Or

Hans Fuchs
Frankfurt a.d. Oder
15232

The state/county/department/canton etc that the city is located in isn’t as much of a fixture.

Now that I think of it, “Beverly Hills, 90210” seems like more of a European thing to say.

[Acajack]

There is a Toronto in New South Wales, Australia. In the Newcastle area.

It's actually named for Toronto in Canada.

For some reason an athlete from Toronto visited there in the 1800s and made such an impression that they named the town for him.

Different times, I guess.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Out of curiosity does anyone know when the custom of “City, State” started? Was it an invention of the US postal service?

In most European countries the custom is to differentiate cities with the same name by some geographical feature, like Frankfurt am Main (the big one) vs. Frankfurt an der Oder.

Or if you see a letter to the editor in a magazine, it usually signs off with the city and postal code, like

Bob Smith
Newcastle-upon-Tyne
NE5

Or

Hans Fuchs
Frankfurt a.d. Oder
15232

The state/county/department/canton etc that the city is located in isn’t as much of a fixture.

Now that I think of it, “Beverly Hills, 90210” seems like more of a European thing to say.

The US is quite unique (though you get this in Canada as well to some degree) in that people even when speaking will often name the state of fairly large cities. Like people say "Dallas Texas" whereas everyone knows Dallas is in Texas. I wonder if it might not have started with pop music in the 1950s. A lot of songs seem to name cities and states.

Thinking of France no one would refer to "Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône" or in Germany you wouldn't hear "Stuttgart, Baden-Wurttemberg".

They just say Marseille or Stuttgart full stop.

But for smaller places, people will often refer to the broader region to locate it more precisely.

So they might say "Lunéville, en Lorraine" when speaking. But never "Lunéville, Lorraine" or "Lunéville, Meurthe-et-Moselle".

And as you say, even in postal addresses the subdivisions are almost never used. It's always just the postal code.