It’s probably a safe assumption that almost everyone in the English speaking world also knows the city of Los Angeles as “LA”.
Yet, I was thinking the other day, people don’t generally refer to “SD” when they’re talking about San Diego, or “LV” when they’re talking about Las Vegas, for example.
But the city of Kuala Lumpur (in Malaysia) is referred to as “KL” by both the locals and anyone who’s been there more than once.
Which got me wondering - besides Los Angeles and Kuala Lumpur, which cities are widely referred to in spoken conversation by their initials? There’s got to be a few, surely…
Do airports calls count? Because then I can give you BIO (Bilbao), MAD (Madrid) and BCN (Barcelona; the most common of the three, perhaps because if you read the letters in Catalan they sound a lot like the full name does in Catalan).
The tiny town where my brother went to college is known by its initials, but as a rip on the bigger LA. Elea or eleadedegé is La Almunia (de Doña Godina), Eléi is the one in California.
No, I meant towns which are called by their calls by the native populace. Besaena is such a common nick for Barcelona that I’ve seen people get surprised to hear it was the airport’s call.
That’s different then; sure, it’d count, but I suspect there’d be very few examples of it; especially since a lot of airport codes have nothing to do with the city’s name.
The locals here would know the GT is George Town, Cayman Islands though it may not well know to outsiders. I would guess most everyone would understand NYC.
I think a distinction can be drawn between cities where initials are often written versus spoken, as per the OP. Does anyone say “SF” rather than San Francisco (or 'Frisco. Or San Fran :P), or “NYC” rather than NooYawk? Because people do say LA and DC and KL and PE.