7 ms·
There are multiple cities in the U.S. with the name of my city, so unfortunately this doesn't work for me.
by spencerchubb 2y ago
There are multiple cities in the U.S. with the name of my city, so unfortunately this doesn't work for me.
- guitarsteve 2y agoSame
- sirobg 2y agoI'm sorry about that. I didn't realize it would be a problem. It's been reported before and I'll work on this. Thanks for sharing!
- lolinder 2y agoIt's a funny cultural thing that it wouldn't have even occurred to me that someone in Europe wouldn't realize city names can conflict—it's a chronic problem here in the states. There are some ridiculously common city names here, but one that's been in the news lately and probably confusing a lot of people is Springfield, which is the name of at least 42 different cities in the US [0], including 5 just in Wisconsin. Most of them are small, but 5 of them (Massachusetts, Missouri, Illinois, Oregon, Ohio) have more the 20k residents. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springfield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springfield
- rootusrootus 2y ago> It's a funny cultural thing that it wouldn't have even occurred to me that someone in Europe wouldn't realize city names can conflict The irony is that a lot of our city names came from Europe.
- chgs 2y agoEvery time o put directions to my local market town of Newport in Shropshire, google insists on thinking I want to travel two hours to Wales. I guess it could be worse and I’d end up in the Isle of Wight. Reused names isn’t just an American thing.
- zh3 2y agoAshford Kent and Ashford Middlesex are common issues in the southeast. As for Hawkridge in Devon...dark night (not stormy) and it was only when I saw Dulverton road signs I got the sense this wasn't going to plan.
- chgs 2y agoAt least two Whitchurch stations I have used. There then the two Newcastle Oh and Shakespeare isn’t from East London
- drcongo 2y agoMy favourite thing about the Newcastles is that one is under and one is on. I was pondering just recently whether there's any other under/upon pairs in the UK.
- Tomte 2y agoWe usually don’t think much about duplicate city names in America, but we sure notice that you‘ve taken all of ours!
- 1over137 2y agoI knew city names were repeated in different US states, but they repeat even within a state?
- elashri 2y agoYes, There are multiple Springfield in Wisconsin, multiple Madison in Pennsylvania and multiple Clinton in New York. These are some of the examples I remember. And yes it is annoying if you live in one of these towns.
- brudgers 2y agoMany US states are larger than many European countries.
- mrweasel 2y agoPlenty of European countries have conflicting city/town/village names as well. If they grow to large they are sometimes specified by adding more locality to their name. Denmark has three cities names Nykøbing, typically specified as Nykøbing Mors, Nykøbing Sjælland or Nykøbing Falser. Small places are just allowed to conflict as long as they aren't in the same postcode.
- riffraff 2y agoIndeed, Italy has a ton of cities called something like "old town", "new inn" or "castle", for obvious reasons.
- dredmorbius 2y agoFrankfurt am Main and Frankfurt an der Oder in Germany.
- scooke 2y agoI made the mistake once of "flying to Frankfurt!" on some low-cost airline out of the UK and landed in Frankfurt-Hahn. Yikes.
- SahAssar 2y agoIn "Frankfurt-Hahn" the "Frankfurt" is still the same Frankfurt you (probably) wanted, you just got a different airport located further out. "Frankfurt an der Oder" is on the other side of Germany on the border with Poland, a ~7h drive away. So this is more like you going to NY and landing at Newark when you expected JFK where Frankfurt an der Oder would be like ending up in New York, Iowa.
- Muromec 2y agoThe amount of cities called "white city" around here is annoying to, but at least they have the decency to be spelled differently.
- neilv 2y ago> and probably confusing a lot of people is Springfield, which is the name of at least 42 different cities And a person, who wrote a song about name confusion, but wrt Springsteen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW1Frr4OcRc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW1Frr4OcRc
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- xyst 2y agoGuess Austin, MN hackers are just going to have to join Austin, TX hackers :)
- tkgally 2y agoThe long-defunct literary magazine Wigwag ran a monthly essay by an Angolan writer named Sousa Jamba titled "Letter from Springfield." For each installment he visited a different U.S. Springfield. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigwag_(magazine) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigwag_(magazine) https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/wigwag-the-magazine-that-lex-built https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/wigwag-the-magaz...
- Aeolun 2y agoMaybe they can do something like Discord, and append a 4 digit unique identifier?
- michaelmior 2y agoThere are, for example, over 30 cities in the US named Springfield.
- ezekg 2y agoFunny that I'm also in Springfield and faced this issue. I didn't think it was such a common name.
- chgs 2y agoKey reason the Simpsons live there - it could be anywhere.
- gibbetsandcrows 2y agoMatt Groening grew up in Springfield, OR (also Portland, the streets names sharing a lot of character's names), it was only after he placed it in Springfield that he realized Springfield could be anywhere. He apparently makes direct references to local landmarks and establishments, and certain characters are rumored to have been based off of locals.
- woodson 2y agoPortland embraces it, see for example the Ned Flanders Crossing, on Flanders St, no less: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ned_Flanders_Crossing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ned_Flanders_Crossing (The Simpsons character is named after the street.)
- rufus_foreman 2y ago>> Matt Groening grew up in Springfield, OR No he didn't. 742 SW Evergreen Terrace. Somewhere around here: https://www.openstreetmap.org/search?query=742%20sw%20evergreen%20terrace%2C%20portland%2C%20or#map=18/45.516198/-122.712028 https://www.openstreetmap.org/search?query=742%20sw%20evergr...
- 2y ago
- AyyEye 2y agoCheck out how many "greenville" s there are. Even several in the same state. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenville https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenville There's even more than one "Las Vegas".
- zh3 2y ago'Ville' translates as "town" so "Green Town" :) Similiarly in the UK 'Downs' is an old english word for hill so I'm always amused by a local 'Highdown Hill' ("HighHill Hill").
- brudgers 2y ago“Las Vegas” means the meadows. The Spanish were usually pragmatic when naming locations on their maps, e.g. Del Rio, El Paso (de Norte), and Presidio in Texas; Salida, La Junta, and Pueblo in Colorado; the Sierra Nevada in California; and El Camino Real’s everywhere.
- datavirtue 2y agoSpringfield. There are hundreds of them.
- user3939382 2y agoYeah for US it needs to be: City, State, Country Also not clear if your mapper was expecting “United States” or “United States of America”
- dumbo-octopus 2y agoHonestly postal code is better. There are many cities with the same name in the same state. Generally postal codes are logical boundaries.
- stickfigure 2y agoMuch harder to geolocate internationally. You really need a geocoding service that accepts flexible input text, narrows the result set, and lets the user pick one.
- joe_the_user 2y agoAnd to keep in mind, cities are mostly unique in a state but not entirely. There was another Oakland California twenty years ago. I don't know if it still exists 'cause Google no longer works for discovery of things like that.
- dredmorbius 2y agoFWIW, Wikipedia has a list of the most common place names in the United States. "Washington" leads at 91, which means nearly two occurrences per state, though this includes variant names such as "Old Washington", "Port Washington", and "Washingtonville": <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_most_common_U.S._place_names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_most_common_U.S._p...> Other issues you might want to consider are locations with multiple names or spelling variants, say, "Ciudad de México" and "Mexico City" or Pretoria/Tshwane, various script variants, or disputed names. Or closely-paired locations, such as Minneapolis / St. Paul or Dallas / Fort Worth. Or those which have changed names (Bombay / Mumbai, Calcutta / Kolkota, Madras / Chennai). For the United States, using MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area) will tend to group people by urban region, with less ambiguity and grouping of reasonably proximate locations. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a widely-used standard elsewhere. Cue: "Falsehoods programmers believe about geography" <https://wiesmann.codiferes.net/wordpress/archives/15187 https://wiesmann.codiferes.net/wordpress/archives/15187> <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14891185 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14891185>
- OptionOfT 2y agoSame in Europe. Hasselt, 47551 Bedburg-Hau, Germany and Hasselt, 54533 Oberkail, Germany
- sirobg 2y agoFixed now!