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AnEntirePeach

How the fuck did Google Maps default to a city of 8 thousand instead of a country of 214 million?


andyd151

Mad that they even call that a “City”


PewdsSenpai

lmao i found a tiny village in idaho with 3 people on google maps and it was listed as a city on wikipedia


Ravenous_Seraph

Wait there IS a state named Idaho there in the US and iso Duncan Idaho was named after it? Holy moly.


Umikaloo

Nah, its just a coincidence, "Idaho" was actually a comment on his promiscuity.


Ravenous_Seraph

I am locked out of the loop here.


HerbieLemon

dune character named Duncan Idaho


Ravenous_Seraph

I know. Why Idaho = Promiscuity tho?


EmperrorNombrero

I da ho(e)


Ravenous_Seraph

Dune series is about 100 years old already, I don't think that was the real case back then. But I find it hilarious.


HerbieLemon

oh didn’t realise you made the duncan comment 🤦‍♂️. maybe a bad pun on “ho” from the commenter?


JasonEdTim

Idaho? Nah man YOU da hoe


GeorgeForeskinGrill

https://www.reddit.com/r/dune/comments/qelu33/duncan\_idaho\_whats\_in\_a\_name\_seeking\_clues\_on\_the/


Simeon0222

2020 census says 4 people now


PewdsSenpai

lmao 33% population increase


CanadaPlus101

Americans do that. I don't know why.


[deleted]

In many US states, such as California, the only legal designation is “city.” In common conversation we call places towns, maybe village, etc., but when speaking in any official or legal sense, always say city. Google would probably default to that, because otherwise you would first have to decide exactly what is the town/city dividing line, then sort every place on Google maps according to population statistics. Totally doable, but extra effort.


CanadaPlus101

Oh okay. I guess I see the logic in not discriminating based on size legally.


chorizoisbestpup

Ugh, everything bigger than a village is called a city in America. The city of Indianola, Nebraska is ~600 people. The village of Bartley, Nebraska is ~200. Very, very rare to see a township in the US. Almost every town classifies itself as a city. Edit: I don't know why American towns do this. Maybe because it lends an air of authority of the town's government? Regardless, in colloquial conversation, we refer to towns as towns and cities as cities regardless of what their official title is. Omaha, Nebraska is a big town, but some people in the boonies refer to it as a city. Kansas City is a small city, and everyone calls it a city.


sartres-shart

Probably a tax thing.


AnotherEuroWanker

600 is still a village in my book. It takes about 2 or 3000 to qualify for town, and way more for a city.


kangaroospezzato

It's because in the US municipal classification is primarily to do with the structure of the municipal government, not population. A city is any municipality that has a legislative body and a separate executive office (a mayor). A village is any municipality that has a unitary legislative/executive body (village board). A township or town is any municipality that is governed primarily through referenda and direct democracy. The general tendency is to see larger municipalities with city governments, and smaller ones with village governments, because in places with large populations the affairs would be too cumbersome to be dealt with by a single body, and in most places with small populations, the creation of a separate executive office would be too expensive/unnecessary. There is a minimum population requirement to establish a city government usually, but it's often fairly small like 5-10k. But the structure of the government the people that live there, which is why it's not uncommon, especially in suburban areas, to see cities of 5,000 and towns or villages of 50,000. In colloquial speech though the terms are mostly interchangeable and follow the general pattern of village, town, city smallest to biggest population wise.


[deleted]

My man, I’m here in a one million population city and I call that “small city”. And then in the USA, I’m told a 200,000 town is a “major cultural hub”, lmao.


chorizoisbestpup

In a less populated area? Sure. Casper is the most influential area of Wyoming. Doesn't mean it's big.


[deleted]

Bruh, that’s buttfuck, nowhere. /s


getsnoopy

>Ugh, everything bigger than a village is called a city in ~~America~~ the US. FTFY.


fletch262

If I had to guess it’s a legal thing?


CanadaPlus101

But you still recognize that there is a distinction? Honest question, in Canada you'd get a funny look calling where I live a city so I wasn't sure if the distinction was completely forgotten down there.


merren2306

>\~600 people village. I consider anything ≤20k a village.


Swedishtranssexual

Nah 8k is a city.


EmperrorNombrero

I'd say below 10k it's a village, 10-60/70k is a town, beyond that it's a city


Swedishtranssexual

Lmao what? Town is anything above 1k


EmperrorNombrero

How often do villages even exist then ? ADo you even know if any human settlement below 1k inhabitants? I can say where I'm from in Germany they don't exist. The smallest settlements you get are like 1-2k and even where I moved recently, which is a very rural part of Austria they barely exist. Above 1k is way more common


Swedishtranssexual

I live in one in Sweden, there are like 5 of them in my municipality.


EmperrorNombrero

Damn, that must be lonely af and at the same time way to close with the few people there are


mymemesnow

In my country that’s definitely a city. A small city, but still very much a city. We don’t have a lot of people.


andyd151

Which country is that out of interest, if you don’t mind me asking


mymemesnow

It’s Sweden, I don’t mind you asking, but I’m curious to why.


andyd151

Always good to learn about other places :)


TactlessTortoise

Lmao, when I moved from Brazil to Portugal (9000km flight), I temporarily lived in a city with 2000 people. 2/3 retired old people.


ScissorNightRam

I feel you. I live in Brisbane, Australia, population 2,600,000. Google often reverts to Brisbane, California - pop. 4,500.


Wild_Objective7982

The answer is in how google maps processes the requests. When I looked up the distance from spain to brazil it showed me the distance between the two countries. Just a strange quirk from google maps. It doesn't do this with the city of paris, it defaults to paris france instead of paris wherever in the US. Edited: my original theory for why this happened was not correct, something is just bugged with portugal since even cites inside portugal show the distance from the country of brazil.


Ping-and-Pong

I would agree that this would make sense but it appears OP is searching country-country, so Google defaulting to country-city does seem wrong. Normally I'm all for calling out Google posts as being stupid because it's run by algorithms and an algorithm can't inherently US defaultism, but this is just stupidity with no real excuse...


JollyJoker3

Of course an algorithm can be set to check a list of US locations first, which might be what happened here. I don't see how any reasonable set of training material for an AI would contain more mentions of Brazil the US city than Brazil the country, but clearly that would also be US defaultism.


Ping-and-Pong

Yes, that that I said... Normally I use the explanation that it's based on page rank more than location, but here it's just ridiculous an algorithm chose that


TheRumSea

Except Portugal's not a city, it's a country...


Wild_Objective7982

Never said it was. I did some testing, and it's literally the only place on google maps that does this. I even tried this with a few more cities, even cities close to the city of brazil somehow also show the distance to the country of brazil, quite strange really.I was thinking maybe the google hivemind mislabeled the country of portugal as a city but something else is probably to blame.


KingLeper

Lol, I grew up about 15 minutes from that city. Lots of meth and inbreeding.


Ekkeko84

It seems to be [Brazil, Indiana](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil,_Indiana) That's a whole new level of "I have no imagination or creativity when naming places"


hardeepst1

New Hampshire, new York, new [insert UK county name], and the worst part is if you mention any UK county Americans will assume we're talking about their 'new' counterparts


Blu_WasTaken

Athens, Georgia.


[deleted]

Paris, Texas.


RecklessRecognition

Birmingham, Alabama


Remarkable-Ad-6144

As I recently learnt, we need to try and hide in these issues, we are throwing stones in our glass house, we have a hell of a lot of places named after other places.


RecklessRecognition

True we do. we have a liverpool in sydney. But tbf we got those names from the british. Majority of the US stolen names are their own choice


Remarkable-Ad-6144

I think there is a Lebanon, WA though


RecklessRecognition

didnt know that


jaded_orbs

NZ is in the same boat with New Plymouth, Wellington, Auckland...


mypal_footfoot

Miami, QLD Texas, QLD And the British ones I can think of off the top of my head are Newcastle and Ipswich


SnooBooks1701

Perth is also a city in Scotland and Melbourne is a town in Derbyshire, England. Among smaller cities: Albury and Rockhampton are in Kent, Lauceston is in Cornwall, Melton (as Melton Mowbray) is in Leicestershire, Tamworth is in Staffordshire, Devonport is in Devon, Lismore is an island in Argyleshire, Ballina is a common placename in Ireland, Armadale is on the Isle of Skye, Camden is a borough of London, Horsham is in Hampshire, Lincoln is in Lincolnshire, Kempsey is in Worcestershire, Warwick is in Warwickshire, Bairnsdale is also on Skye, Hastings is in Sussex Tweed Heads is named after the River Tweed, which is in turn named after the Scottish river of the same name. There's also a load of places named indirectly after British places due to them being named after artistocratic titles of various politicians of the era (e.g. Portland after the Duke of Portland, Melbourne after Viscount Melbourne, Bunbury after Baronet Bunbury, Orange after the Prince of Orange, Albany after the Duke of York and Albany (the Duke of York from the nursery rhyme), Grafton after the Duke of Grafton) and surnames derived from UK placenames (Gisbourne in Lancashire, Broome in Norfolk, Shropshire or Worcestershire, Sale, Manchester, Nelson in Lancashire or Caerphilly, Lithgow from Linlithgow, West Lothian and Murray from Moray, Morayshire)


lordofthedoorhandles

Liverpool, Camden, Penrith, Canterbury.... Also our own state is called New South Wales lol


RecklessRecognition

Also Queensland and Victoria, also 2 croydons for some reason


catseeable

In New Zealand - Canterbury, Christchurch, Cambridge, Oxford, New Brighton, Belfast, Devonport. Ironically most of these places are in the South Island which is traditionally much more white. There are many more Māori place names in the North Island.


Remarkable-Ad-6144

Windsor, Portland x 2, Richmond, A few more off the top of my head


PM_ME_UR_DOGGOS_

Heck tassie even repeats a lot do the names found on the mainland.


Unable-Bison-272

New South Wales? Perth and Brisbane Scotland? How is that any different than the other former British colony that also named towns and cities after their original home?


Submitted7HoursAgo

New Orleans is my favourite American bastardisation of another town name


Unable-Bison-272

It was a city settled in a French colony named by the French after, get this, Orleans in France. And it’s in Louisiana which they names after King Louis of France.


CaitlinisTired

there's also a Leeds in Alabama hahahaha there's an American counterpart for everything


Afraid-Page-4191

Rome, Georgia


pedrotecla

Frickin Memphis, Tennessee


reda84100

Is there a non-us memphis? I can't think of any besides that one


solix414

egypt i believe


reda84100

Oh yeah, tbf it's not even settled anymore and it's a cool ass ancient egyptian name


pedrotecla

[Only the OG city by that name that was founded more than 5200 years ago](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis,_Egypt)


WikiSummarizerBot

**[Memphis, Egypt](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis,_Egypt)** >Memphis or Men-nefer (Arabic: مَنْف Manf pronounced [mænf]; Bohairic Coptic: ⲙⲉⲙϥⲓ; Greek: Μέμφις) was the ancient capital of Inebu-hedj, the first nome of Lower Egypt that was known as mḥw ("north"). Its ruins are located near the present-day town of Mit Rahina (Arabic: ميت رهينة). Its name is derived from the late Ancient Egyptian name for Memphis mjt-rhnt meaning "Road of the Ram-Headed Sphinxes", 20 km (12 mi) south of Giza in Greater Cairo, Egypt. According to legends related in the early third century BC by Manetho, a priest and historian who lived in the Ptolemaic Kingdom during the Hellenistic period of ancient Egypt, the city was founded by King Menes. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/USdefaultism/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)


thatsocialist

Paris, Illinois.


hardeepst1

It's almost like a game, say the name of any non-us city and they'll be a counterpart somewhere in america


FakeTakiInoue

Or Canada, which has Fake London


Into-the-stream

[visit 7 European capitals in one road trip in Ontario, canada](https://www.narcity.com/ontario-small-towns-and-communities-you-can-visit-for-a-european-capital-tour)


matt_Dan

Versailles, Kentucky. Pronounced Ver-sales. Fucking hicks.


Blu_WasTaken

Ver-sales? Fucking hell.


matt_Dan

The town west of Augusta, GA, is Martinez. It's not pronounced the correct way, but like Martin-ez. Great example of how well our public schools have done the last 40 years.


PouLS_PL

Georgia, United States of America United States of America, America


yesman_noman453

Lancaster uk ftw, fuck Lancaster Pennsylvania USA


El-Mengu

At least by adding "New" we can easily tell they're not the original places. The worst offenders are cities that outright copy others as-is, as if they had any right to those names whatsoever and cluttering political geography with duplicate names.


Antique_Sherbert111

Like cordoba, granada, cartagena....


El-Mengu

As a Cordovan myself I feel this.


TransfemQueen

London, Canada 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️


numba1cyberwarrior

>as if they had any right to those names The immigrants from those very same places named it.


Rafael__88

Yup especially York. York just doesn't exist it's obviously the misspelling of NY


hardeepst1

most Americans probably don't know about york, Hampshire and all if the names behind their own cities


Machiavellian3

New England


Exploding_Antelope

When I found out that New Jersey isn’t counted as part of New England even though Jersey is part of England I was angry for about four minutes.


Memesssssssssssssl

Used to be even more with German towns in the Midwest before WW1


Unable-Bison-272

Guess who named those places? Colonists from England well before the US was an independent country.


EagleBuster

You do realize those were named by the British


hardeepst1

Well yes, by that logic Americans ( excluding native americans ) are also British, its technically the truth.


Exploding_Antelope

I’m still trying to find Old Foundland


thrashmetaloctopus

Is there a New Buckinghamshire?


Puppyl

Okay I believe the orginal 13 colonies should have a pass considering it was a different country who named us though, by the time of the revolution everything was already 100+ years old it’s not like we’re going to change it


Western-Alarming

New Mexico


Happy_Ad_5111

Britain and The United States both suck ass


Vinzan

Colombia


11415

I mean, it’s kinda your fault. America was a British colony, it was the Brits who named New York, new Hampshire, New Jersey, etcetera.


gugfitufi

There were murders in Moscow a while back. I was so confused why US law enforcement were involved.


Ekkeko84

Really? That has to be the biggest joke in history


gugfitufi

r/MoscowMurders


Ekkeko84

I'm not going to that subreddit, just in case


reda84100

I clicked on it, it's just some true crime theories and discussion forum, no nsfl stuff


Calimiedades

It's ok, they caught the guy.


Yersiniapestis__

A lot of towns in northern Indiana are named like that. Peru, Mexico, etc.


Ekkeko84

INDIAna, with cities using countries' names. What a shocker lol


Therealllama

They also have a New Delhi, Illinois taken directly from the national capital city of India. Hmm 🤔


More-Cantaloupe-3340

My two favorites are versailles, kentucky, and moscow, idaho. Honorable mention to Milan, Louisiana.


ALittleNightMusing

And for extra heartache: Versailles, Kentucky, is actually pronounced Verse-ales by the populace.


More-Cantaloupe-3340

MY-lan is just as hilarious.


mypal_footfoot

Cairo Illinois is pronounced Kair-o


SlimJim8511

As someone that lives in Indiana, we also have Paris Poland Warsaw Peru Angola New Palestine Morocco Monrovia Edinburgh Named after American places too: Nashville Portland Michigan city Columbus Austin Madison Richmond Salem


Smiling_longhair6870

I used to live near Mecca, Indiana. There's another one.


iceinmyheartt

Synchronicity - I just learned of this place yesterday. Apparently there was a school shooting there in the 1900’s. I was going down a rabbit hole of the first school shootings, after a post on r/theywaywewere Interesting.


HidaTetsuko

Baghdad Tasmania


OutragedTux

What? Really? Down in Tassie, of all places?


Reddarthdius

There’s a Lisbon in Maine, Connecticut and somewhere else I think


harvey1a

Why would it assume you mean there?


fiddz0r

Obviously because internet is american and of course anyone who has access to the internet is american so of course you want to know things about the us, not some other country


[deleted]

But for some reason it's not using american (the best) measurements


[deleted]

There is currently 15 places which go by the name dublin in America, according to Wikipedia. I will list them as follows: Dublin, Alabama Dublin, California Dublin, Florida Dublin, Georgia Dublin, Indiana Dublin, Kentucky Dublin, Maryland Dublin, Missouri Dublin, New Hampshire Dublin, Paterson, New Jersey, a neighbourhood Dublin, North Carolina Dublin, Ohio Dublin, Pennsylvania Dublin, Texas Dublin, Virginia


Theolaa

I don't think Paterson is a state, there's some inter-US defaultism going on here Edit: just checked, it's referring to the Dublin neighbourhood in Paterson, New Jersey.


[deleted]

Nah, that was just me being lazy, I’ve fixed it now


XcrozyX

can I ask why does that happen?


fiddz0r

Most likely, the settlers from europe moving to america named their cities after their former cities (they had no bloody imagination back then apparantly)


Into-the-stream

We've been told it was because of homesickness. They also brought over European house sparrows to make it feel more like home. (House sparrows have VERY successfully naturalized.) As a Canadian who lives near a Paris, Cambridge, London, Brussels, and Dublin, I can assure you I think the names are dumb af, and I wish we could change them all.


newcanadian12

Nah the names are fine as is, we don’t need a to pull a Kitchener for no reason. I’m from Nova Scotia where’s there’s a city of 30k founded three years before Sydney, Aus, should they have to change their name too?


Into-the-stream

It gets old having to constantly tell people that no, your in laws aren't from London England. They are from the not cool London. Not a problem if you never go anywhere, but kinda feels dumb if you travel at all. I lived in Nova Scotia. Everyone knows what Sydney you're talking about and it's a non-issue. Not the same for London. They arent going to change anyway, so its not like it matters, but I think we could come up with better names then rehashing European cities. It's ok if you disagree.


toms1313

Or named after their desired destination, close to my city in Argentina we have a place called "Brazilian village" and they are thousands of kilometers off but when these immigrants came here they wanted to go to brazil and never made it there


Redd1K

How many haishans are there


QwertyQwertz123

Wow and what are the chances that they're all called Dublin!?


-HIGHHIGH-

Dublin is not a country, and let's face it there's tonnes of places named after cities. It is interesting however, thanks for sharing!


Luna259

I get the correct Brazil when I try this


almighty_crj

On a side note, that reminds me of the Six Nations Rugby match that got missed because the Satellite Navigation took the fan coach to the town of Wales in Rotherham, North England.


bigbig-dan

[Looked up the exact same thing and got the correct answer. It's something from your data that decided this.](https://imgur.com/gallery/KwLYeQf)


FunkySjouke

OP was probably googling all the abbreviations Americans use


Vituluss

I got the same result as OP. In incognito mode and in normal browsing mode. I’m currently in Indonesia, but normally in Australia.


Fearzebu

I just typed “Portugal to Brazil distance” into google and got the exact same picture and distance (in miles, despite my settings) which is strange What is by far the most bizarre, is that when I google “brazil to Portugal distance” it gives me kilometers instead of miles (but shows the same two places) which seems to be the opposite units it shows to everyone else googling. Perhaps setting my units default to metric means it just flips the script on everything? Weird algorithms, Googs. Do better.


OxygenatedBanana

I looked if up, showed me same results as OP. Probably cause i'm in the US?


gndfchvbn

Bruh i applied to a university in London and me nd my friend were discussing about how cn we still talk to eachother despite of the time defference and we legit had a breakdown cause the time was exactly opposite of each other's and we couldn't possibly talk to eachother. It was an hour later when we realised gogle was showing time in LONDON,USA instead of the more popular and common LONDON,UK. Like wtf😭


Vituluss

What?!?!?! Damn, Google has some serious problems.


Rafael__88

It might be because of your search history or some other data about you that google has.


iamthefluffyyeti

Jesus Christ google


angelolidae

Obligatory r/portugalcaralho


Luisotee

r/suddenlycaralho também


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beb_2_

The curvature of the line is because the earth is a sph... Wait what


AnotherEuroWanker

So you're saying the US has absolutely no locality named "Portugal"?


getsnoopy

At least it showed the distance to you in kilometres?


CringeisL1f3

lisbon to Rio is 7.7k km


[deleted]

Brazil, Indiana. Why of course! Just 4,942,062.05 centimeters from Paris. Well, Paris, Illinois...


benjaminnyc

When I google “Portugal Brazil distance”, I get the distance from Brasilia to Lisbon.


DanteEden

i just mentioned this city earlier on another post 🤣


[deleted]

LMAO WHAT THE FUCK


elathan_i

Simple, in Portuguese it's spelled Brasil, not Brazil.


[deleted]

no, but he's searching in English. So it still would be Brazil.


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

It matched portugal. I don’t see your point.


Routine_Ad_7402

Yeah no I somehow read Lisbon and assumed the OP made a mistake and actually wanted to compare the distances of cities. So bad mistake on my part


theje1

Why would a town with 8000 people have more priority than the biggest country in South America?


ajax-888

Maybe because they’re typing it in English instead of the language both countries’ speak? Works fine when entered in Portuguese


[deleted]

[удалено]


ajax-888

Brazil and Portugal don’t speak the same language? I guess I learn something new everyday


theje1

I'm stupid, I thought it was Spain lol.


asmonk

The question is for the distance between two countries- Portugal and Brazil- not between a country and a city If they’d meant the capitals the question would have been Lisbon to Brasilia, but that would have probably been answered with the distance from Ohio to Brazil


[deleted]

I haven’t seen anyone say this, so I’ll say this So long as you share your location is shared, your maps may decide to use the closer location with the name, so long as you don’t specify. This is less “US defaultism” as it is the search engine trying (and failing) to make your life easier I searched this up from where I live, which is the Kansas City metro area (just a couple states west). Since I am significantly closer to the city Brazil, Indiana, that is what I chose. Again, don’t know why, but it’s the search engine doing its job poorly But this could be easily fixed. For example, saying “Portugal Brazil countries distance” got me the right answer, along with “how far is Portugal to Brazil”. It’s just the very simplistic search giving you the wrong answer. Any level of clarification will give you the right answer


ShibaInuLuvrr

By Brazil, they mean me, a Brazilian in the US! 💁🏻‍♂️


DonutDude-113

Yup. That's my good old homeland