Arlington is about a third of the way from Blair NE to Fremont NE along US 30
The Arlington school district begins on the other side of my back yard, and my post office serves the nebulous “Arlington” part of the adjoining town (so I sometimes get mail addressed to me in “Arlington”), and several people I know say they live in Arlington, and…
…“Arlington,” to me, means Virginia. Clearly. (Though the Rangers made me say Texas immediately afterwards.)
Virginia for me. I visited the cemetery when I visited Washington DC some years ago, so that’s what comes to mind first.
If I had to make a second choice, it would be Arlington Heights, Illinois. I’ve watched and wagered on horse races from Arlington Park racetrack there in the past.
Vermont. I have no idea why. I’ve never been to Arlington, Vermont. I don’t know anyone in Arlington, Vermont. Arlington, Vermont is not a large town, much less a real city.
But the answer is Arlington, Vermont. shrug
My immediate thought: “Arlington, New York but I bet they mean the one in Virginia”. That is, I thought of them both at about the same time.
Voted “other”.
There seem to be Arlingtons all over the place.
It’s like Springfield. 
OK. I’ve grown up and lived in Chicago for most my life (about 3/4). I’ve never ever heard “Arlington” to refer to “Arlington Heights.” How are there four votes (at the moment) for that?
I voted Virginia.
This. When you say “Arlington,” the only association that springs to my mind is the cemetery.
It would depend on who says it. If it’s someone up here in New England, I think about the Arlington in Massachusetts. If I’m down in Texas, it’s the Arlington in Texas.
Massachusetts for me. As with the others, purely because it’s nearby and so gets mentioned in weather forecasts by the Boston TV stations a lot.
Actually… I’ve lived about 20 miles from Arlington for more than three decades, driven THOUGH it any number of times on my way to Boston or elsewhere…and I don’t think I’ve ever set foot on the ground within the town. Never heard of any site worth coming from out of town to see.
Or heard of any historical happening there, which is kind of unusual for a close-in suburb of Boston.
(Waiting for the other Arlington = Massachusetts posters to school me on all the fantastic stuff that happened there…)
DFW in Texas. Arlington is the halfway point between Dallas and Ft. Worth.
When I started this thread, I could have sworn that DFW airport was in Arlington. It’s not. I actually lived in Dallas for a couple of years, but all those cities just ran together for me and I could never tell one from the other.
Well, when I hear the word “Arlington” I think of the racetrack. And I know that it is in the town of Arlington Heights, so that’s what I think of, and that’s what I voted for. Of course I don’t expect most people in the world to follow the same chain of reasoning.
Even when I saw the poll and saw Arlington Heights I still thought of Arlington VA because I went to Google Maps to see where in Arlington County Arlington per se is, and the location where business names seem to call themselves “Arlington” with no other description such as “Rosslyn” is only a few blocks from a neighborhood that Google Maps calls Arlington Heights.
Arlington, Massachusetts, of course.
Where a friend of mine from bacxk in grammar school (in NJ) lives
Where we almost bought a house
Where we did buy a terrible piece of furniture
Where some friends of ours rented a house (that we helped them move into)
Which has a pretty decent downtown, on a railroad-bed bike trail
Which still has a downtown movie theater.
Arlington, Washington. Almost moved up there about 25 years ago when I worked at the Boeing Everett plant. Now it’s home to a distillery that sponsors my blog.
Yeah, my immediate default answer to the question in the subject line, “Where do you think Arlington is?”, is “in Virginia, where Arlington National Cemetery is, with the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier”.
I clicked on the poll selection for “Virginia” before reading the text of the OP, which said “If I mention the city name ‘Arlington’ to you, where do you think of first?”. At which point I was like, “Aw dang, is this a trick question and Arlington National Cemetery is the name of just the cemetery, and not the town it’s located in?”
In which case the next one I thought of was Arlington, TX, where I remembered there is or used to be “The Ballpark at Arlington” where the Texas Rangers played baseball, and which has probably been replaced or renamed with a corporate named park by now. (I follow NL baseball, for the most part, and don’t know all the current ballpark names in the American League.)
Would not be able to come up with any other location named “Arlington”.
Was that the point of the OP? To see how many people assumed Arlington National Cemetery was in a place called Arlington, Virginia? (Which it is, as an “unincorporated county”, whatever that means.)
Texas. Arlington, Virginia is a county.
I shouldn’t have put city name in my OP, wasn’t trying to be tricky
You have the wrong Texas explosion. Arlington Tx. explosion, April 17, 2013. Texas explosion not quite 75 years ago, Texas City, Tx., April 16, 1947, 300 miles away from Arlington.