In most major US cities there are certain neighborhoods that are enclaves of people with a shared ethnicity, culture, nationality, religion, etc., e.g. Chinatown, Koreatown, Little Italy, Little Tokyo, Little Havana, and so on.
Is there such a thing as “Americatown” in any foreign cities, where American expats form their own community? Or do American expats tend not to congregate in large numbers and rather assimilate into their host country’s culture?
Or is it just known as “McDonalds”? 
I’ve heard it called both “McDonalds mansions” and “gringolandia” from Latin American people whose countries attract a certain type of American expats; generally retirees (often younger than it would be possible for someone local to retire), and in any case interested in taking advantage of the exchange rate but not interested in becoming part of the local culture at all. But as someone once put it, “mind you, some can live in the center of town, be married to a woman from here, and still manage to have his own gringobubble” (one of her coworkers was an American who, despite having lived in the country for 17 years, 14 of them married to a local, didn’t speak a word of Spanish and required any documents to be translated to English).
There is such a thing in several Central American countries, Costa Rica in particular. Costa Rica has American neighborhoods and even whole towns spread from the capital, San Jose to some American towns on the Pacific Coast that were formed intentionally in the 60’s for that purpose.
See Nosara for example:
Certain parts of Jerusalem and some settlements in the West Bank are almost completely American; specifically, Orthodox Jewish American. I was at the wedding of a second cousin of mine outside Jerusalem a couple of years back, and as far as I could tell, my parents and I were the only Hebrew speakers there.
Consider that at one time in history the only people in this country were Indians (Native Americans, First Nation, etc.) and it wasn’t until the 1600’s that people from countries all over the world (primarily Europe) came here to live. For one reason or another.
When Europeans began immigrating to New York (for example) it was natural for people from the same country to congregate and co-locate in the same neighborhood. Simply because that is what was familiar to them, and that is how Italian, and Polish, and German, (etc etc) became neighborhoods.
The reverse has never happened.
When I was there (30-35 yrs ago), there were many such neighborhoods, except that we weren’t specifically American - All English-speakers hung out together, and it was pretty irrelevant whether one was from South Africa, Australia, Canada, USA, GB, or whatever.
There was no name for such places, comparable to Little Odessa. Have names developed since then?
The reverse has happened, and in any case it’s a phenomenon that’s taken place all through history, it’s not as if it was exclusive to the US. Pamplona used to be divided into three burroughs (each with its separate laws and customs), which had originally come to exist as people with similar customs/origins built together.
Panama too, although I don’t know of any whole neighborhoods in Panama City. There are a number of developments in the mountains (especially Boquete) and also near the coast mainly inhabited by retirees from the US.
I hear Lake Chapala near Guadalajara, Mexico, has a lot of American expats.
My former SIL and her husband have retired to one in Cabo San Lucas.
In Taipei, Taiwan, there is a US expat community in the district of Tianmu. I grew up going to the American school there and it was always a strange little bubble. There’s a Subway, several Starbuckses, a Western-style cineplex (unusual at the time, increasingly common now), and now also a Chili’s and Cold Stone ice cream, apparently. Even many of the native restaurants there would have menus in English or staff who could speak it.
Accordingly to Wikipedia, that district apparently also houses a bunch of foreign embassies, a Japanese school, and a European school, so I guess it’s more properly the “alien district”, but growing up I saw mostly the influences of Americana.
My guess would be that many cities would at least have an American bar, similar to the way many US cities have a Pittsburgh or a Boston sports bar.
I think they’re called US Military Bases.
I came in to say this. My wife, who is from Colon, knew quite a number of kids her age from a different area, possibly the Canal Zone, she didn’t know for sure, whose first language was English. My wife spoke no English at the time, but got along with those other kids fine as they spoke Spanglish and she was able to make out much of what they said.
Yep. Try to find someone who can’t speak English around Kaiserslautern, Germany.
The fact is that Americans do live in several regions throughout the world in communities with an ex-pat majority. Claverhouse (perhaps with tongue in cheek) suggested ‘US Military Bases’ and that looks like the only NAME that Americans have for such a community. Tokyo doesn’t have an Americatown or a Little America (but Antarctica did… hmmmm). Where such enclaves exist, what do the natives call it? In the above case, it would be in Japanese.
Or perhaps I am being too restrictive in my definitions.
I know someone living in Bangalore and one of the neighborhoods there is called “Dollars Colony” because it was, at one point, where Americans congregated.
Dollars Colony!
There is a story in there somewhere.
Osaka, Japan has America-mura, but it’s not where ex pats live, it’s a fashion and night life area with American themed bars, restaurants and clothing stores. Even includes a Statue of Liberty on top of one of the buildings. You do see quite a lot of foreigners there but it’s also very popular with japanese youth.
I was told by a Brazilian native that in Sao Paolo there is an area where a good number of Americans live. They call it Brooklyn. 