A local DJ asked this trivia question: What is the only town name common to all 50 states? The answer was Greenville (or various spellings thereof). Maybe the masses from around the US can help me verify from their knowledge!
(FYI: One person I met originally from Hawaii claims there could be such a town. Although I WAGed all Hawaii towns are of Hawaiian origin, she explained how the influx of mainland USA business to Hawaii has placed non-Hawaiian town names on the map.)
I count 24 states with a Greenville. What’s a valid variation on Greenville? There are a lot of different “green” places: Greenacres, Greenback, Greenbank, Green Bay, Greenbrier, etc. Greenfield, Greenbush, and Greensboro are pretty popular.
I count 22 states with towns or cities called Washington. There are a lot more Washington counties besides.
States with a Greenville:
AL, CA, DE, FL, GA, IL, IN, IA, KY, ME, MI, MS, MO, NH, NY, NC, OH, PA, RI, SC, TX, VA, WV, WI
There is a Greenville Delaware. Its just west of Wilmington and is generally regarded as the “rich” part of town. I hafta admit though it is pretty nice.
Variations on spelling, not the name itself! For example, Greeneville or possibly Greaneville. The standard road atlas might not be good enough to find them all. The larger atlases at a library are usually pretty thorough, and as they say “if it didn’t make it there, it won’t make it anywhere…”. In other words, such a town with a population of 12 might not get counted.
Places called Greenville lists many such towns. In addition to those listed there, I have found Greenvilles in AZ, ID, MD and NM.
States without a Greenville, as far as I know:
AK, AR, CO, HI, KS, MN, MT, NE, NV, ND, TN, VT, WA, WY
Bibliosomthinerother wrote:
I know for a fact that there is a Greenville, TN.
While there are some non-Hawaiian town names in Hawaii (on the island I grew up on we had Mountain View, but that’s the only one I can think of), I haven’t heard of a Greenville.
What about Springfield? (Argh!)
A quick Yahoo search turned up the following formerly Greenville-less states also have a place called Greenville. They may not be incorporated, but the exist on the maps:
AR: Rt 15 near Hermitage
NV: Middle of nowhere (literally) near McEllen Canyon
There may be more, but that brings us (along with previously gathered data) to:
States WITH Greenville (including varient spellings)
AL, AR, CA, DE, FL, GA, IL, IN, IA, KY, ME, MI, MS, MO, NH, NY, NC, NV, OH, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, VA, WV, WI
States WITHOUT Greenville (so far)
AK, CO, HI, KS, MN, MT, NE, ND, VT, WA, WY
That’s 39 with, 11 without.
That’s alot, but still not 50. Can we find the other 11, or was this DJ talking out of his ass?
According to the 1995, US Geographic Names database, there are 44 states with a “populated place” named Greenville.
The states without one are: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Wyoming.
Colorado has a Greenville Creek and New Mexico has a Greenville Mine. The other four don’t have anything called Greenville recognized by the US Board on Geographic Names.
There is no “official” Greenville, Massachusetts. There is a Greenfield, but no Greenville.
Unofficially, however, there is a Greenville section of Leicester, a town in Worcester County. Also, there is a Greenville in Sandwich, a town out on the Cape. Did the DJ say it had to be an incorporated municipality, or could it just be a local name?
The US Board of Geographic names just recognizes “populated places”. It doesn’t worry about legalities. It is more concerned that there is a locality with at least a few people who call their home a certain name.
Sometimes the “populated places” are nothing more than a copule of gas stations on an interstate.
This was actually a Final Jeopardy question a few years ago. What city name is located in the 48 continental states? Answer: Greenville.
I would really like to know Jeopardy’s source for this info. The Rand McNally Commercial Atlas does not recognize Greenville as being a place in any of the six states I had listed above either.
There is only town in Hawaii that even starts with the letter G: Glenwood, which is on Hawaii.
There ain’t no Greenville in Montana. I was born and raised here, and have driven all over the State for my job, and I’ve never heard of it. I think the “populated places” explanation is a bit of a dodge; there may well be two Freeman up in the Crazies calling their land “The Kingdom of Billy and Bob,” but that doesn’t translate to any sort of town or settlement recognized by anyone except them.
This may be strecthing the alternate spelling a bit, but there is a Granville in both North Dakota and Vermont.
I doublechecked the Geographic Names database and indeed there is no listing for a Greenville, Montana.
I got lost looking through all the states that start with “M”.
Wouldn’t it take a long time to drive all through Montana (despite the liberal speed laws)? 
There was a thread in rec.puzzles recently on the most common placename in the US. The title of the thread was “Town/city/village in all 50 States?”. No one suggested Greenville, though.
Our conclusion was that Riverside is the champ, found as a populated place in 46 states, followed by Centerville in 45 states. (We used GNIS as our reference.) Note that these are for just Riverside and Centerville and not compound names such as Riverside Center or Centerville Corners.
If you count compound names and don’t restrict it to populated places, GNIS will hit on all states for the names Washington, Adams and Lincoln. For Hawaii, these names are on parks and schools and such.
No one has posted the url for GNIS: http://mapping.usgs.gov/www/gnis/gnisform.html