City nicknames The following is my list of City Nicknames, started around 1993. I had collected suggestions from the rec.games.trivia newsgroup, and had heard someone on KGO (San Francisco's AM news-talk radio station) use the phrase "... 10,000 residents of The City, of complications from ...". So I appropriated that phrase "The City of Complications", as an exceptionally apt nickname for San Francisco, and went on to collect a few other names. When I had enough of them, I posted the list to that newsgroup. So far, I have only been able to re-locate the quiz version of my list, so I haven't actually merged all of the answers back into the list yet. This past year or two (2001-2002), I added a few from the "Isaac Asimov" quiz column in the newspaper, a Sunset Magazine article (which lists California as the "World Capital of Agricultural World Capitals"), and other sources. I also found two other lists on the web (URLs below). I now keep this merged version in both http://got.net/~landauer/lists/CityOf.html and the stories link in my Radio Weblog, http://radio.weblogs.com/0100945/stories/2002/07/24/cityNicknames.html . The one at http://got.net/~landauer/CityOf_was.html is older. Other web locations that have some similar lists include: http://www.pe.net/~rksnow/mottos.htm is (today) the top Google result for City nicknames, with good reason. "COMMUNITY MOTTOS & NICKNAMES" looks like they've been actively collecting these for a lot longer than I have. The Trivia asylum http://www.triviaasylum.com/lists/cities.html This one also has a list of cities whose real names are odd/strange/funny: http://djstexasstateofmind.homestead.com/StrangeCityNames.html ePodunk http://www.epodunk.com/ has profiles of a lot of communities The "Alternate Atlas" at http://bbrace.laughingsquid.net/alt-atlas.html City Nicknames in the Silicon Boom vein: http://www.netlingo.com/lookup.cfm?term=Siliconia Most recent additions (8 February 2003): Albany, OR; Alpine, TX; Beaver, OK; Bemidji, MN; Brainerd, MN; Bristol, TN; Burlington, Iowa; Cody, WY; Douglas, WY; Frannie, WY; Gallup, NM; Granby, CO; Isleton, CA; Laramie, WY; Lowell, WY; Meeteetse, WY; New York (as "Never Sleeps"); Noxubee County, Alabama; Philadelphia, PA; Rockport, MA; Santa Rosa, NM; Sonora, CA; Sturgis, Michigan; Taxco, Mexico; Tijuana, Mexico; Westwood, CA. My List of City Nicknames: City Nickname Aberdeen, Scotland The Granite City Akron, OH Rubber City Albany, Georgia Good Life City Albany, OR Home of the Timber Carnival Alexandria, Egypt Pearl of the Mediterranean Allentown, Pennsylvania Cement City Alpine, TX Gateway to the Big Bend Annapolis, Maryland Crabtown Atlanta, GA The Athens of the South Atlanta, GA The City Too Busy to Hate Atlanta, GA Dogwood City Atlanta, GA Gate City of the South Auckland, NZ City of Sails Baltimore, Maryland Charm City Baltimore, Maryland Monument City Banaras, India Luminous City Bandon, OR Storm Capital of the World Bangkok, Thailand Venice of the East Beaver, OK Cow Chip Throwing Capital of the World Bemidji, MN Home of Paul Bunyan & Babe, the Blue Ox (see Brainerd and Westwood) Beograd The White City Bickleton, WA Bluebird Capital of the World Birmingham, AL Pittsburgh of the South Boston, MA The Athens of America Boston, MA Beantown Boston, MA The City of Kind Hearts Boston, MA The Cradle of Liberty Boston, MA The Hub of the Universe Boston, MA Puritan City Brainerd, MN Home of Paul Bunyan & Babe, the Blue Ox — The legend on the Brainerd city limits sign shows up in the film "Fargo". (See Bemidji and Westwood) Bristol, TN Food City Brandon, Manitoba The Wheat City Bucharest, Romania The Little Paris Budapest, Hungary The Pearl of the Danube Buffalo, New York Bison City Buffalo, New York Flour City Buffalo, NY The City of Good Neighbors Buffalo, NY The Nickel City Buffalo, NY The Queen City (of the Great Lakes) Burlington, Iowa Loader/Backhoe Capital of the World Butte, Montana Copper City Byran, Ohio The Fountain City Calgary, Alberta, Canada The Stampede City Calgary, Alberta, Canada The Heart of The New West (that's the New Convention and Visitors Bureau slogan) Calgary, Alberta, Canada Canada's oil capital (Because of high concentration of oil company head offices, as in Houston) Cape Girardeau, Missouri Rose City Cape Hatteras, North Carolina The Graveyard of the Atlantic Castroville, CA Artichoke Center of the World Champaign-Urbana, IL Chambana Champaign-Urbana, IL Shampoo-Bananna Champaign-Urbana, IL Urpaign Charleston, South Carolina America's Most Historic City Charleston, South Carolina Palmetto City Charlotte, North Carolina Hornets Nest Charlotte, North Carolina Queen City Chicago, Illinois Big Town Chicago City of Big Shoulders Chicago, Illinois Hog Butcher for the World Chicago Slaughterhouse to the World Chicago, Illinois Phoenix City Chicago, Illinois Second City Chicago The Windy City Christchurch, NZ The Garden City Cincinnati, Ohio Queen City Cleveland, Ohio Mistake on the Lake Cleveland, OH America's North Coast Cody, WY Rodeo Capital of the World Columbus, OH The Crossroads of Ohio Cooperstown, New York Birthplace of Baseball Council Bluffs, Iowa Iowa's Leading Edge Crestwood (Louisville), KY Whiskers Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico The City of Eternal Spring Dallas, Texas Big D Dayton, Ohio Birthplace of Aviation Denver, Colorado City of the Plains Denver, Colorado Convention City Denver, CO Mile High City Denver, Colorado Queen City Detroit, MI Motown Detroit, MI Motor City Dipolog City, Philippines Orchid City Douglas, WY Jackalope Capitol [sic] of the World — I vaguely recall that one of the main promoters and/or inventor of the Jackelope died within the last few months. Durham, NC City of Medicine Durham, NC Bull City Edinburgh, Scotland Athens of the North Erie, Pennsylvania The Gem Eskilstuna, Sweden Smedstan (The smith City) Fallbrook, CA Avocado Capital of the World Florence, Italy The City of Lillies Fort Myers, Florida The City of Palms Frannie, WY Biggest Little Town in Wyoming Gainesville, Florida Hogtown Gallup, NM Drunk-Driving Capital of America Gilroy, CA Garlic Capital of the World Gotland, Sweden Pearl of the Baltic Göteborg, Sweden Götet Granby, CO Snowmobile Capital of Colorado Greenfield, CA Broccoli Capital of the World Hammondsport, New York Cradle of Aviation Hawthorne, CA The City of Good Neighbors (2) Hershey, PA Chocolate Town, USA Hollywood Hollyweird Hollywood Tinseltown Holtville, CA Carrot Capital of the World Hong Kong Pearl of the Orient Hood River, Oregon (Columbia Gorge) Windsurfing Capital of the World Hoople, North Dakota Tater Town Houston, Texas Magnolia City Indianapolis, Indiana Naptown Indianapolis, Indiana Circle City Indianapolis, Indiana Railroad City Indio, CA Date Capital of the World International Falls, Minnesota The Icebox of the United States Isleton, CA Crawdad Town, USA Jackson, Mississippi Chimneyville Jaipur The Pink City Jerusalem City of David Jerusalem City of Peace Jönköping, Sweden Smålands Jerusalem Kalamazoo, Michigan Celery City Kansas City, Kansas Heart of America Kokomo, Indiana City of Firsts Kristianstad, Sweden Lilla Paris (rare these days) Keizer, OR Iris Capital of the World Kelseyville, CA Pear Capital of the World (but see here). Laramie, WY Gem City of the Plains Las Vegas Sin City Las Vegas Entertainment Capital of the World Las Vegas City of Lights Las Vegas, Nevada (downtown) Glitter Gulch Las Vegas, Nevada (downtown) The Strip Letchworth (UK, near Cambridge) The first Garden City in the World Lodi, CA The [Tokay] Grape Capital of the World (probably more popularly known as the place where Creedence Clearwater Reunion got stuck in once, in the 1960's.) London, England The Square Mile London's financial district The City of London London, Ontario The Forest City Los Angeles The Big Orange Los Angeles City of Angels Los Angeles, California City of Flowers and Sunshine Los Angeles La La Land Los Banos City of the Spring Baths Louisville, Kentucky City of Beautiful Churches Louisville, Kentucky Falls City Lowell, WY The Rose City of Wyoming Madison, Wisconsin Four Lake City Manila, Philippines Pearl of the Orient Mar del Plata, Argentina Queen of the Coast Marysville, California Gateway to the Gold Fields Medellin, Columbia Orchid City Meeteetse, WY Where Chiefs Meet Melbourne, Australia City of Chromatic Dissolution (not a real nickname, but I really liked the phrase. I'll have to dig up the film, someday.) Memphis, TN Bluff City Memphis, TN The City that Elvis Ruined (I get a Googlewhack for that one! Today, anyway.) Miami, Florida Little Cuba Miami, Florida Magic City Milwaukee, Wisconsin Cream City Minneapolis, Minnesota Flour City Minneapolis The Mini Apple Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN The Twin Cities Mobile, Alabama City of Five Flags Montreal, Canada The City of Saints Mountain Iron, Minnesota Taconite Capital of the World Moyobamba, Peru Orchid City Nashville, TN Music City, USA New Haven, Connecticut Elm City New Orleans The Big Easy New Orleans The Crescent City New York The Big Apple New York The Capital of the World New York The City that Never Sleeps New York Gotham New York Empire City New York The Melting Pot New York/Manhattan The City Norrköping, Sweden Peking Noxubee County, Alabama Home of the Dancing Rabbit Festival and Magnolia Pilgrimage (I know, it's not really a city, but how could I pass up a phrase like that?) Oakdale, CA Cowboy Capital of the World Oakland, CA Oaktown Oroville, CA City of Gold Oxford City of Dreaming Spires Oxnard, CA Strawberry Capital of the World (but see here). Paris City of Light Pasadena, CA City of Roses Patterson, CA Apricot Capital of the World Pearsonville, CA Hubcap Capital of the World Petaluma, CA Egg Basket of the World Petra The Rose Red City Philadelphia City of Brotherly Love Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Rebel Capital Philadelphia, PA Mortal City (per Dar Williams) Pittsburgh, PA Steel City Pittsburgh, PA The 'Burgh Pittsburgh, PA Iron City Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania The Birmingham of America Pittsburgh, PA (downtown) Golden Triangle Pittsburgh, PA (downtown) Three Rivers Pittsburgh, PA (region) City of Bridges Placerville, CA Hangtown Portland, Maine Forest City Portland, Maine Hill City Portland, Oregon City of Roses Prague, Czech Republic The Golden City Providence, Rhode Island Beehive of Industry Quebec The Gibraltar of North America Queenstown, NZ Extreme Sports Capital of the World Redmond, WA Mordor Redmond, WA Nerdburg Reno, NV The Biggest Little City in the World Reseda, CA The Hub of the West Valley (That's the San Fernando Valley) Rigby, Idaho Birthplace of TV There's a museum here, the "TV and Pioneer Museum". When I drove through, it made me wonder jest which of those Conestoga wagons had TVs, and how good the reception was. Rincon (Santa Barbara County), California Queen of the Coast Surfers' term. Not really a city. Rochester, New York Kodak City Rochester, New York Snapshot City Rockport, MA The Mendocino of the East Rogue River Valley, OR Pear Capital of the World (but see here). Rome The City of the Seven Hills Rome, Italy The Eternal City Rome, Italy City of Love Rye, New York Border Town Sacramento, California River City Saint Louis, MO Gateway to the West (or "The Gateway City") Saint Paul, Minnesota Moscow on the Mississippi Saint Petersburg, Russia Venice of the North Salem, Massachusetts City of Witches Samal, Philipines Island Garden City of Samal (IGaCoS) San Antonio, Texas Alamo City San Antonio, Texas Mission City San Diego, California The Plymouth of the West San Diego, CA America's Finest City San Francisco, California The Golden Gate City San Francisco, California Shaky Town San Francisco, CA Baghdad by the Bay San Francisco, CA The City North San Jose, CA The Golden Triangle Santa Fe, New Mexico The City Different Santa Rosa, NM The SCUBA-diving capital of New Mexico Saratoga Springs, New York Spa City Savannah, Georgia Garden City Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario The SOO Sault Ste. Marie, MI (I think) The SOO Seattle, WA The Emerald City Selma, CA Raisin Capital of the World Shah Alam, Malaysia Orchid City Sonora, CA The Queen of the Southern Mines Sri Lanka Pearl of the Indian Ocean (I know, not really a city.) Stockholm Eken (The Oak) Stockholm Venice of the North Stockton, CA California's Sunrise Seaport Sturgis, Michigan Curtain Rod Capital of the World Sundbyberg, Sweden Sumpan Syracuse, New York Salt City Taxco, Mexico Silver Capital of the World Thousand Oaks, CA T.O. Tijuana, Mexico Television Capital of the World Toledo, Ohio Corn City Toronto, Ontario Hogtown Toronto, Ontario Muddy York (archaic, I think) Toronto, Ontario T.O. Toronto, Ontario Toronto the Good (sometimes pejorative) Toronto, Ontario Trawna or Trahna Toronto, Ontario, Canada Queen City Tulelake, CA Horseradish Capital of the World Umeå, Sweden Björkarnas stad (The city of the birches) (Historic) Vancouver, B.C., Canada Gastown Venice, Italy Bride of the Sea Venice, Italy Queen of the Adriatic Värnersborg, Sweden Lilla Paris (Little Paris) Västerås Gurkstan (The Cucumber City) Vicksburg, Mississippi The Gibraltar of America Victoria, Australia The Cabbage Patch Victoria, B.C., Canada Little England Walla Walla, WA The Town So Nice They Named It Twice Walla Walla, WA Walla2 Walla Walla, WA Wallyworld Washington D.C. Capital City Washington D.C. News Capital of the World Waterbury, Connecticut Brass City Wenatchee, WA Apple Capital of the World West Hollywood, CA Boystown West Hollywood, CA The Creative City West Palm Beach, Florida Orchid City Westwood, CA Home of Paul Bunyan & Babe, the Blue Ox It seems that a celebrity like Paul Bunyan has several homes. I've actually seen him here in Westwood — and note that this is the Lassen County Westwood. (See http://www.westwoodchamber.com/ and also see Brainerd and Bemidji.) Wheeling, West Virginia Nail City Wichita, Kansas Emerald City Windsor, Ontario Tijuana North NOTES: I used to have some of the following ones in the main list. I have moved these here mostly for not being unique enough (i.e., Google found too many candidates for the given honor). I should probably move all of the "Queen City"s down here, too. A recent contributor mentioned Coos Bay, Oregon as having (had) the official motto "City With a Future". Alas, Google says that this is one of the too-common ones: Lansing, KS; Mankato, MN (had this motto in 1912); Yokosuka, Japan; Ruda [approx equal]öl[florin]Öska, Poland; Massillon, Ohio; Fulton, NY?; Monett, MO; ¬¶widnica, Poland; Lisbon, Portugal; Sumner, Iowa; St Louis, MO; Tremonton, Utah And it has a few variations: Altus, Oklahoma: "City with a Future to Share" Kenai, Alaska: "THE VILLAGE WITH A PAST - THE CITY WITH A FUTURE" Lowell, Arkansas: "Town with a Past, City with a Future" Beersheba: "A place with a past, a city with a future" "City of Champions" (Joliet, Illinois; Brockton, Massachusetts; Duncanville, Texas; Lilburn, Georgia; Edmonton, Alberta; Detroit, Michigan; Los Angeles, California; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). (Pittsburgh has really really bad Google-juice. I have a vague recollection that it (and Edmonton) were the two "City of Champions"s on my original list. But Pittsburgh is way down low on the Google-meter search for "City of Champions".) "City of Gold" (Gold Beach, OR; Oroville, California; Cite de l'or, Quebec; Gold Coast City in Australia; Victor, Colorado; etc) "City of Love" (Glasgow, San Francisco, Calcutta, Paris) "City of Roses" — Pasadena, California (my first home town) has held the Rose Parade for more than a century now; this gives it first dibs on this monicker. I had also seen Portland, Oregon referred to this way. But Google gives the nod to ?Cape Girardeau, Missouri??? Weird. The "City That Time Forgot" (Baldwin Park, CA; Galena, IL; New Orleans; Tikal, Guatemala; Bruges/Brugge, Belgium; and a host of others) Cowtown (Both Edmonton and Calgary, Alberta; Chicago; Columbus, OH; Dallas; Kansas City; Wichita, KS; et al) "The All-American City" (I gather there's an award by this name, whose value is enormously diluted by the fact that it is bestowed annually on 10 cities. It is the National Civic League that does this.) Here are a few of the winners, plus other places that claim this title either on the web, or in email I've seen lately: Tri-Cities of TN/VA; Ocean City, MD; Tuscaloosa-Northport Tupelo MI; Roswell, NM; Santa Clara, CA; Delray Beach, FL; South Miami, FL; Fort Dodge, IA; Howard County, MD; Ocean City, MD; Independence, MO; Bozeman, MT; Fayetteville, NC; Brownsville, TX; Allentown, PA The End of the World. (Not to be confused with The End of the Internet, of which there are also a whole bunch). Trosa, Sweden; Ushuaia, Argentina; Anchorage, AK; Gibraltar Gateway to the Rockies (Denver and Aurora Colorado; and Calgary, Hinton, and Banff, Alberta. Probably dozens of others.) Devin T McLaughlin suggested a bunch of nicknames for Calgary; some ("Entrepreneurial City" and "Volunteer City") failed the google test (didn't really show up at all), and Cowtown fails in the other direction (see above). Cotton Capital of { World, USA, Western Australia, etc... } "The Garden City" is an unusual one: there appear to be a number of cities with "Garden" as a part of their real names, which makes it a bit hard to sift out and locate the one(s) where it's just a nickname. I left three of these in the main list; Christchurch is Phil Pearson's fault, and the others came from a Google search to see if the nickname was too common for my tastes. pre-Thanksgiving update: Hogtown goes to Toronto mainly, though Gainesville put in a strong enough #2 showing. So at this point, only one of the nicknames from my original list remains unidentified -- i.e., I haven't quite figured out with enough certainty to put it back in place yet: "The Paris of the 1980's". Maybe Seattle. Gaining no confidence from Google, I'll probably just drop that one. And the other two cities that I didn't find matches for are in Ontario, Canada — Copetown and Welland. My google efforts did not come up with any nickname for either. These will have to wait until I re-locate my original list or check some of the other sites I've listed above. Thanks to Erland, Margaret, Phil, Devin, Drew, Isaac, Kunaal, Dave Letterman, the film "Fargo", and anyone else who contributed suggestions! © Copyright 2007 Doug Landauer . Last update: 07/2/6; 14:17:04 .