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Comment by sirobg | Hacker News Reader

I'm sorry about that. I didn't realize it would be a problem. It's been reported before and I'll work on this. Thanks for sharing!

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It's a funny cultural thing that it wouldn't have even occurred to me that someone in Europe wouldn't realize city names can conflict—it's a chronic problem here in the states.

There are some ridiculously common city names here, but one that's been in the news lately and probably confusing a lot of people is Springfield, which is the name of at least 42 different cities in the US [0], including 5 just in Wisconsin. Most of them are small, but 5 of them (Massachusetts, Missouri, Illinois, Oregon, Ohio) have more the 20k residents.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springfield

> It's a funny cultural thing that it wouldn't have even occurred to me that someone in Europe wouldn't realize city names can conflict

The irony is that a lot of our city names came from Europe.

Every time o put directions to my local market town of Newport in Shropshire, google insists on thinking I want to travel two hours to Wales.

I guess it could be worse and I’d end up in the Isle of Wight.

Reused names isn’t just an American thing.

Ashford Kent and Ashford Middlesex are common issues in the southeast.

As for Hawkridge in Devon...dark night (not stormy) and it was only when I saw Dulverton road signs I got the sense this wasn't going to plan.

At least two Whitchurch stations I have used. There then the two Newcastle

Oh and Shakespeare isn’t from East London

My favourite thing about the Newcastles is that one is under and one is on. I was pondering just recently whether there's any other under/upon pairs in the UK.

We usually don’t think much about duplicate city names in America, but we sure notice that you‘ve taken all of ours!

I knew city names were repeated in different US states, but they repeat even within a state?

Yes, There are multiple Springfield in Wisconsin, multiple Madison in Pennsylvania and multiple Clinton in New York. These are some of the examples I remember. And yes it is annoying if you live in one of these towns.

Many US states are larger than many European countries.

Okay but how do you agree in which Springsteen, Wisconsin to meet? How do you tell your favorite navigation software where you're going to be departing from? How is this disambiguated if not by country and state combined?

I assume by zip code.

Or drop a pin.

Plenty of European countries have conflicting city/town/village names as well. If they grow to large they are sometimes specified by adding more locality to their name.

Denmark has three cities names Nykøbing, typically specified as Nykøbing Mors, Nykøbing Sjælland or Nykøbing Falser. Small places are just allowed to conflict as long as they aren't in the same postcode.

Indeed, Italy has a ton of cities called something like "old town", "new inn" or "castle", for obvious reasons.

Frankfurt am Main and Frankfurt an der Oder in Germany.

I made the mistake once of "flying to Frankfurt!" on some low-cost airline out of the UK and landed in Frankfurt-Hahn. Yikes.

In "Frankfurt-Hahn" the "Frankfurt" is still the same Frankfurt you (probably) wanted, you just got a different airport located further out. "Frankfurt an der Oder" is on the other side of Germany on the border with Poland, a ~7h drive away.

So this is more like you going to NY and landing at Newark when you expected JFK where Frankfurt an der Oder would be like ending up in New York, Iowa.

The amount of cities called "white city" around here is annoying to, but at least they have the decency to be spelled differently.

> and probably confusing a lot of people is Springfield, which is the name of at least 42 different cities

And a person, who wrote a song about name confusion, but wrt Springsteen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW1Frr4OcRc

Guess Austin, MN hackers are just going to have to join Austin, TX hackers :)

The long-defunct literary magazine Wigwag ran a monthly essay by an Angolan writer named Sousa Jamba titled "Letter from Springfield." For each installment he visited a different U.S. Springfield.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigwag_(magazine)

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/wigwag-the-magaz...

Maybe they can do something like Discord, and append a 4 digit unique identifier?

FWIW, Wikipedia has a list of the most common place names in the United States. "Washington" leads at 91, which means nearly two occurrences per state, though this includes variant names such as "Old Washington", "Port Washington", and "Washingtonville":

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_most_common_U.S._p...>

Other issues you might want to consider are locations with multiple names or spelling variants, say, "Ciudad de México" and "Mexico City" or Pretoria/Tshwane, various script variants, or disputed names. Or closely-paired locations, such as Minneapolis / St. Paul or Dallas / Fort Worth. Or those which have changed names (Bombay / Mumbai, Calcutta / Kolkota, Madras / Chennai).

For the United States, using MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area) will tend to group people by urban region, with less ambiguity and grouping of reasonably proximate locations. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a widely-used standard elsewhere.

Cue: "Falsehoods programmers believe about geography"

<https://wiesmann.codiferes.net/wordpress/archives/15187>

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14891185>

Yeah for US it needs to be:

City, State, Country

Also not clear if your mapper was expecting “United States” or “United States of America”

Honestly postal code is better. There are many cities with the same name in the same state. Generally postal codes are logical boundaries.

Much harder to geolocate internationally. You really need a geocoding service that accepts flexible input text, narrows the result set, and lets the user pick one.

Check out how many "greenville" s there are. Even several in the same state.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenville

There's even more than one "Las Vegas".

'Ville' translates as "town" so "Green Town" :)

Similiarly in the UK 'Downs' is an old english word for hill so I'm always amused by a local 'Highdown Hill' ("HighHill Hill").

“Las Vegas” means the meadows. The Spanish were usually pragmatic when naming locations on their maps, e.g. Del Rio, El Paso (de Norte), and Presidio in Texas; Salida, La Junta, and Pueblo in Colorado; the Sierra Nevada in California; and El Camino Real’s everywhere.

And to keep in mind, cities are mostly unique in a state but not entirely. There was another Oakland California twenty years ago. I don't know if it still exists 'cause Google no longer works for discovery of things like that.

There are, for example, over 30 cities in the US named Springfield.

Funny that I'm also in Springfield and faced this issue. I didn't think it was such a common name.

Key reason the Simpsons live there - it could be anywhere.

Matt Groening grew up in Springfield, OR (also Portland, the streets names sharing a lot of character's names), it was only after he placed it in Springfield that he realized Springfield could be anywhere. He apparently makes direct references to local landmarks and establishments, and certain characters are rumored to have been based off of locals.

Portland embraces it, see for example the Ned Flanders Crossing, on Flanders St, no less: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ned_Flanders_Crossing

(The Simpsons character is named after the street.)

>> Matt Groening grew up in Springfield, OR

No he didn't.

742 SW Evergreen Terrace. Somewhere around here: https://www.openstreetmap.org/search?query=742%20sw%20evergr...

Literally in my post. He moved to Springfield after living in Portland.

Springfield. There are hundreds of them.

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