Asklemmy

Unfortunately, I would guess that school shooter locations are probably the most easily recognised in the US. Uvalde has a population of ~15,000, for instance.

Edit: I just realised the question was recognising the name of the city, not recognising city based on a picture...

Probably Svolvær/Lofoten with a population of ~4700. It doesn't have the official status of "City" in Norway though.

Chornobyl, Ukraine. "50 thousand people used to live here, now it's a ghost town"

There are many more ghost towns now, due to the war. Adviivka, Bakhmut and many others, some small, some relatively big. Everyone has heard of those small cities.

I think people really overestimate how much everybody knows about the US.

I'd say there's a large population that only know NYC, LA, and Chicago.

For France it's probably Vichy, infamously well known internationally for being the capital of the French pro-Nazi government during the Occupation. Only 25'000 inhabitants.

Gibraltar has a population of 32,000, which by some definitions is too small to be considered a city.

For foreigners, probably Abbottabad (population: 275,890) due to being the site of Osama Bin Laden's compound.

For Pakistanis themselves, it's a bit harder to determine, as I'm not able to find reliable population statistics for smaller settlements. However, some contenders are probably Nathia Gali, Chitral, Skardu and Ziarat. All of these towns are in the northern mountainous regions of Pakistan, which don't have as much population density as e.g. the plains of Punjab. They're also fairly popular tourist destinations for Pakistanis who want to take a break from the heat. Ziarat could be especially famous, as Muhammad Ali Jinnah (founder of Pakistan) spent some of his last days in a cottage there. It even appears on the 100-rupee note.

The village "Wacken" is well known in Germany because they hold one of the worlds largest anual Heavy-Metal festivals. They have a population of around 2000, the festival regularly attracts around 80,000 people.

Not my location, but Scranton, PA?

In Denmark it's probably Snave (No English Wikipedia page for it). Population is a whopping 211 people. It was popularized in a series of commercials for a Danish cellular carrier. The concept was so popular that there even was a movie. I haven't seen it, but the reviews seems to suggest it could be fun to watch... If you are drunk enough.

The word "snave" in Danish can somewhat be translated to snogging in English. Heavy kissing. Which has led to the city having massive problems with theft of their signs.

Paris. It's also a city in Texas.

I'm not from there, but who doesn't know the name of Scunthorpe?

I guess the one that pretty much everyone knows in Germany is Buxtehude. It is being used as the poster child for a backwards town, far away from cities. Which is funny because neither is it backwards, remote or even very small. With a population of 40k it’s relatively large, compared to many other places in Germany, even just right next to Buxtehude. It is not far from Hamburg and its historic core is worth a visit. I think the name itself is the reason why it is being made fun of so much. Though there are so many other, much quirkier named towns in Germany but it somehow became Buxtehude.

Dildo, Newfoundland.

Not really though.

Off the top of my head I’d say places like Gander, Churchill, Iqaluit - places known maybe for their location as much as their people and unique situations?

Edit: another comment (Aspen) made me want to mention Banff but Alberta isn’t acting Canadian anymore so it no longer counts.

Hell, Michigan

Hallstatt - Austria

The city so beautiful that the Chinese copied it.

It might not count as a city but Nome Alaska has the Iditarod with only, 3700 people. Or maybe some famous battlefield, Gettysburg has 7100 people. A ski resort like Aspen could count with 7000. We all had to memorize state capitals so maybe somewhere like Montpelier, Vermont has more recognition but has 7800 people.

Well, Brazil is such a huge country and there are lots of smallest cities with still huge population.

Unfornately i would have to say that the smallest one and most famous would probably be because of some recent disaster and one I can remember is Brumadinho. Less than 40k people, a city destroyed after a dam collapsed and a lot of mud flooded everywhere, 5 years ago

If you mean people from my country.... All of them.

New Zealand only has like 10 actual cities. It is not some great feat of memory to know them all.

Forks, Washington population of ~7000 made very notable due to the twilight series. Or Astoria, Oregon population of ~10,000 made famous by the Goonies.

How about: name a country and name the smallest city you recognize from there. Like New Zealand you could say Rotarua