For example, Houston, TX has a population of approx. 2.2 million, while there is a Houston, Arkansas with a population of about 173.
Are there other examples?
Looks like we have a winner!
Just to be safe: Los Angeles, Texas
Hot damn! A winner in five minutes.
SD is weird.
Chicago (just the plain name) seems to be unique.
Here’s a variation:
- large US city (pop. > 100,000)
- smaller US city with the same name as 1.
- not Kansas City
What’s the city combo with the smallest ratio:
pop. city #1/pop. city #2
The closest (geographically) same name case I know of is Newark, NJ (~ quarter million people) and Newark, DE (~32,000) which are only about 120 miles away, making it plausible that someone might actually go to one of the Newarks while intending to go to the other one (yes, I know the cities’ names are pronounced differently).
Some combination of Springfields, I’m certain. First two in Wiki that I looked at:
MO: 159,498
IL: 116,250
Ratio: 1.37
I nominate Springfield MA/Springfield IL = 153060/116250 = 1.317 as of 2010 census.
Of course Springfield MO comes in at 537,631, but you didn’t say I had to chose the largest city of a given name.
And I see I used metro pop for Springfield MO, so the best is S MO/S MA = 1.042
Little Rock, AR 197,357 Area:117 square miles
Little Rock, CA 1,377 Area: 1.8 square miles
I’d assume that Springfield is a hot contender either way!
Considering that a couple of people have gone to Auckland, New Zealand, while attempting to go to Oakland, California, this is indeed plausible.
If you want to go worldwide, the largest city is Shanghai with a population of over 24 million. There is also an unincorporated town in Virginia also called Shanghai. I can’t find the population but I assume it’s quite low.
Also high up on the list of geographical confusions is Sydney, Nova Scotia vs. Sydney, Australia. There have been several news articles over the years about hapless travelers who ended up in the wrong place.
The mechanical dragon for Wagner’s opera at Beyreuth, Germany was sent to Beirut, Lebanon.
Portland, Maine vs Oregon. I bet that has confused a lot of travelers. I live in Portland, Maine and the reason our airport is called the Jetport is because the “Portland International Airport” is in Oregon.
Philadelphia, PA (pop 1,560,297) and Philadelphia, TN (pop 533). Seems like it could make the top 10.
Honorable mention to New York Mills, Minnesota (in Otter Tail County).
Another record-holder: the largest city in the US with another city larger than it having the same name is Columbus, Georgia.
I’m not sure what would be, world-wide, the largest second-largest city with the same name