History Main / LondonEnglandSyndrome

* Inverted with a Nike ad during the 2012 London Olympics. Since they weren't an official sponsor, they couldn't explicitly mention the Olympics. They could, however, show athletes in all the ''other'' Londons around the world, as long as they didn't have any references to London, England, or to the Olympics. After some controversy, it was decided that this was legal. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYtMkhfQfa4 Watch it here.]]

* ''Film/MarsAttacks'': Music/TomJones greets Byron Williams by saying he saw Byron in a boxing match in "Cardiff, Wales". As a native Welshman, Jones obviously knows exactly where Cardiff is, so the explanation is obviously for Byron's benefit since he's American and presumably less familiar with UK geography.

Unfortunately, this results in some confusion and frustration for many Americans. Since the USA is big and--though sparsely-populated--home to quite a few cities, and many of these cities have similar if not identical names (for instance, there are ''thirty-two'' states that have a city named "[[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield Springfield]]" and twenty-seven settlements named "Canton"), Americans often describe an American location as "''City Name'', ''State''",[[note]]Postal authorities in some countries, not just the US, require such usage.[[/note]] and describe a foreign location as "''City Name'', ''Country''" to parallel that.[[note]]Come on, [[GlobalIgnorance did you really expect Americans to know about other countries' first-level subdivisions and what cities they have?]][[/note]] This works well in the USA, but becomes rather jarring and annoying for foreigners, who find it annoying that after being shown Tower Bridge (itself not to be confused with the same named, but golden bridge in Sacramento, California), the Houses of Parliament, and St. Paul's Cathedral [[Film/TheMummyReturns all in one shot]], they still need to say "UsefulNotes/{{London}}, England".

* ''Film/MarsAttacks'' has a jarring example. Tom Jones, a famous Welshman, says, in a Welsh accent, "When I was growing up in Cardiff, Wales."

* An old ad for Capital One features a family complaining about their credit card service not offering them free airline miles for purchases, so the dad invents a machine to teleport them to their vacation destination. The father enters the destination as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Petersburg,_FL St. Petersburg, Florida,]] with the family dressed in beach attire. The machine teleports them to cold St. Petersburg, Russia.

-->'''Cable:''' Well, it was either this or Big Mafcs in Paris.

There are a great many American cities and towns named after places from Europe: mostly British places, but French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch names crop up across the USA, not to mention numerous variations and simplifications of Native American spellings. This reflects the USA's origins as being colonized by people from across Europe. Interestingly enough, lots of major American cities are far bigger than their European counterparts ever were. (UsefulNotes/{{Cleveland}}, UsefulNotes/{{Boston}}, UsefulNotes/{{Rochester}} and UsefulNotes/{{Portland}}[[note]] Strictly speaking, Portland, Oregon, was named after Portland, Maine, not the one in England.[[/note]] are among the most obvious examples -- though two major exceptions do exist in the cities of Birmingham and Manchester.)

But let's look at a number of American places in comparison to show how common this is. Odessa, Ukraine and Odessa, Texas; Vienna, Austria, and Vienna, Virginia; then there are duplicate cities, e.g. the much older and smaller city of Las Vegas, New Mexico is almost completely ignored compared to Las Vegas, Nevada, while Wilmington, North Carolina is about the same size as Wilmington, Delaware. There are so many examples that some non-examples are often confused for examples, such as the independent (ex-Soviet) republic of Georgia and the U.S. state of Georgia, which was actually named for King George II.

In France, the tendency is to ram the identifier into the town name itself, so one gets places like Sainte-Marie-sur-Mer and Sainte-Marie-de-Ré and Sainte-Marie-des-Champs, etc. However, there are also over a dozen places called just plain Sainte-Marie in France alone; here you would have to specify in which département the one you mean is situated. The English equivalent would be, say, "Springfield-in-Massachusetts" and "Springfield-on-Black-River". Some British towns, such as Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Stratford-upon-Avon, Ashton-under-Lyne, and Kingston-by-Ferring, follow this scheme as well, as do German-speaking towns and cities Neustadt an der Aisch, Neustadt am Rübenberge, Neustadt in Holstein, and Neustadt an der Weinstraße (four places called "new town" named respectively after a river, a hill, a province, and a scenic route). Canada follows the British model in a few places, notably Niagara-on-the-Lake[[note]]that is, Lake Ontario[[/note]], so-called to distinguish it from Niagara Falls down the road. The US is home to Washington-on-the-Brazos in Texas and Geneva-on-the-Lake, Ohio (the lake in this case being Erie), which distinguishes it from plain old Geneva, Ohio a few miles south.[[note]]By extension, the original Geneva (both the canton and the city) in UsefulNotes/{{Switzerland}}, which, of course, is helpfully on a lake (Lac Léman).[[/note]]

A slightly different form is sometimes used: Americans from small towns will usually specify their state simply to give a general idea of what region they're from. If someone says he is from Miamisburg, Ohio, it isn't because there's another Miamisburg out there (there isn't, as far as we know), but because people from other states have no idea where in the world Miamisburg is. The foreign equivalent might be for someone from a small town to give the name of the nearest major city.

In case you were wondering, aside from London, England there are at least 26 cities, towns, or villages whose full name is "London". [[note]]One each in Belize, Canada (Ontario), Equatorial Guinea, Finland, Kiribati and Nigeria; three in South Africa; seventeen in the United States (in various states).[[/note]] There are many more such communities with "London" as part of their name and at least 2 London Islands (both in Chile; one is also known as Cook Island to alleviate confusion).

* In the second episode of ''Series/InterviewWithTheVampire2022'', Lestat proposes a vacation to Rome. A shocked Louis asks, "Rome, ''Italy''?"''
--> '''Lestat:''' Would you prefer Rome, Wisconsin?

-->-- '''Lestat:''' Would you prefer Rome, Wisconsin?

* Used in the title of the show ''Series/EerieIndiana''

* In UsefulNotes/BritishNewspapers, it's not uncommon to see the name of a town in England followed by the county (e.g., Wigan, Lancashire). It seems that this is not done so that the town is not confused with another (although there are numerous villages in England with the same name) but instead to give the reader a general idea of the town's location. However, it can lead to a lot of confusion, for example in the case of Wigan, Lancashire. Lancashire is the traditional county Wigan is located in--but it is ''currently'' in the county of [[UsefulNotes/FootballPopMusicAndFlatCaps Greater Manchester]]. Whether the traditional county or the current county is used is decided upon by some unknown criteria and can be confusing.

** There is a small handful of towns named Jerusalem in the United States which aren't as prominent as Jerusalem, Israel: in Maryland (unincorporated), New York, Ohio (village), and Rhode Island (unincorporated village).

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' revels in not doing this when mentioning Springfield. Assuming it were a real American town, it could be any of 28 Springfields in 24 states (Wisconsin has five). Otherwise, it parodies the phenomenon:

* [[Music/FearOfMusic "Cities"]] by Music/TalkingHeads humorously refers to Memphis as being "home of Elvis and the ancient Greeks" -- Music/ElvisPresley lived in Memphis, Tenessee while "the ancient Greeks" were of course in Memphis, Greece.

'''Sarah Brown:''' ''[shocked]'' Havana, Cuba?\\

*** The mainland maps of Taiwan were used to show sovereignty rather than usefulness, hence depictions of administrative divisions of Taiwan once stayed as if 1949(refusing to acknowledge any changes). However as more and more people visit and even live across the Strait depicting reality becomes more beneficial, hence the disappearance of "Taipei County" before 2020. The State Council of PRC were in fact more far-sighted than mappers having (at least for recent decades) never listed any official shadow subdivisions beyond "Taiwan Province, People's Republic of China", enabling anyone saying "New Taipei" with no political connotations.

* Because of the way certain American states were divided into townships, with part or all of a township allowed to incorporate itself into a city, it's not uncommon for a city and a township next to each other to have the same name, differentiated by one being officially called "City of X" and the other being "X Township".

There are a great many American cities and towns named after places from Europe: mostly British places, but French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch names crop up across the USA, not to mention numerous variations and simplifications of Native American spellings. This reflects the USA's origins as being colonized by people from across Europe. Interestingly enough, lots of major American cities are far bigger than their European counterparts ever were. (UsefulNotes/{{Cleveland}}, UsefulNotes/{{Boston}}, Stockton, Rochester, York/New York, and UsefulNotes/{{Portland}}[[note]] Strictly speaking, Portland, Oregon, was named after Portland, Maine, not the one in England.[[/note]] are the most obvious examples, and the only two major exceptions are Birmingham and Manchester.)

* There are two regions in Europe called Galicia: one in northwestern UsefulNotes/{{Spain}} and one straddling the border of UsefulNotes/{{Poland}} and UsefulNotes/{{Ukraine}} (roughly comprising the southernmost region of the former and the westernmost of the latter). What's weirder is that this might not be a coincidence; both regions were inhabited in ancient times by Celtic-speaking peoples, and their names may come from the same root as "Gaul" and "Galatia" (also Celtic-speaking territories), even though nobody from those regions speaks a Celtic language today (unless they took a course in Welsh or something for some reason).[[note]]The names are ''not'' related to ''Gael'', which is known to have a different internal etymology within the Celtic languages, even though it also refers to a Celtic-speaking people (namely the Irish, Scots, and Manx).[[/note]]

* There are two regions in Europe called Galicia: one in northwestern UsefulNotes/{{Spain}} and one straddling the border of UsefulNotes/{{Poland}} and UsefulNotes/{{Ukraine}} (roughly comprising the southernmost region of the former and the westernmost of the latter). What's weirder is that this might not be a coincidence; both regions were inhabited in ancient times by Celtic-speaking peoples, and their names may come from the same root as "Gaul" and "Galatia" (also Celtic-speaking territories).

* Aside from the famous Bethlehem (city of David, alleged birthplace of [[UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} Jesus Christ]]), which is in occupied Palestinian territory, there is an Israeli town which is called "the Galilean Bethlehem" (''Beit Lehem [=HaGlilit=]'') for clarity. Which isn't even counting other countries--there are 13 in the United States alone, including ''two'' in North Carolina.

-->'''Cable:''' Paris, '''Oklahoma'''? [[note]]Funnily enough, [[ArtisticLicense there is no Paris, Oklahoma]]. There is, however, a Paris, Texas, 15 miles from Oklahoma.[[/note]]

* There are several towns throughout the U.S. whose names run along the lines of "[State Name] City", and then, of course, the state name is read. The most famous of these is New York City, New York. There's also Iowa City, Iowa, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Texas City, Texas, and Oregon City, Oregon, among others. Reading the state name afterwards in the manner of this trope can seem [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment redundant]], of course, unless...

*** Also, some cities are adjacent to a county of the same name, e.g. (urban) Handan City were surrounded by Handan County, Handan City (prefecture) (as the urban proper reaches the Handan County, it was ultimately dissolved and absorbed into city districts).

*** When Chaohu prefecture dissolved (the peripheral counties were divided between neighboring prefectures, and urban Chaohu was transferred to Hefei prefecture's control), some foreign newspapers claimed that a city as large as Los Angeles disappeared from map (there are 4 million people in the prefecture, but the urban area of Chaohu has a population of 800,000--a "small" city by Chinese standards).

*** The state of Washington was going to be called Columbia because of the old Columbia territory (the reason why the Canadian piece is called British Columbia). They named it Washington to avoid confusion with DC. You can guess how that turned out in the long run.

* Until late 2007, [[Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} The Other Wiki]] was headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida. There have apparently been cases of stuff intended for them ending up in [[UsefulNotes/TheCityFormerlyKnownAs St. Petersburg, Russia]].

** Justified as according to [[Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} That Other Wiki]], G.W. himself surveyed the area, and the town was incorporated before his death. Also, it's the oldest town of Washington in the USA.

* Aside from the famous Bethlehem (city of David, alleged birthplace of [[UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} Jesus Christ]]), which is in Palestinian territory, there is an Israeli town which is called "the Galilean Bethlehem" (''Beit Lehem [=HaGlilit=]'') for clarity. Which isn't even counting other countries--there are 13 in the United States alone, including ''two'' in North Carolina.

* In the ''Series/ParksAndRecreation'' epsisode "Ms. Knope Goes To Washington", Leslie is annoyed to discover that when she mentions her beloved hometown of Pawnee, she has to specify that it's the one in Indiana as there are "Pawnees" in several other states. (TruthInTelevision. Wiki/TheOtherWiki recognizes four "Pawnees" in the U.S. and one "Pawnee City".)

[[folder:Film]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/RugratsInParis'', Kira and Chas introduce themselves to one another, and Kira asks Chas if he's ever visited Paris before; Chas says he hasn't been to Paris, France, but has been to Paris, Texas.

* Spoofed in the ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce'' movie, where the opening scene (set in Egypt) is subtitled: "Egypt, Millions of Years Ago, 3 p.m., 1492, New York."

There are a great many American cities and towns named after places from Europe: mostly British places, but French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch names crop up across the USA, not to mention numerous variations and simplifications of Native American spellings. This reflects the USA's origins as being colonized by people from across Europe. Interestingly enough, lots of major American cities are far bigger than their European counterparts ever were (UsefulNotes/{{Cleveland}}, UsefulNotes/{{Boston}}, Stockton, Rochester, York/New York, and UsefulNotes/{{Portland}}[[note]] Strictly speaking, Portland, Oregon, was named after Portland, Maine, not the one in England. [[/note]] are the most obvious examples, and the only two major exceptions are Birmingham and Manchester).

Unfortunately, this results in some confusion and frustration for many Americans. Since the USA is big and--though sparsely-populated--home to quite a few cities, and many of these cities have similar if not identical names (for instance, there are ''thirty-two'' states that have a city named "[[WhereTheHellIsSpringfield Springfield]]" and twenty-seven settlements named "Canton"), Americans often describe an American location as "''City Name'', ''State''",[[note]]Postal authorities in some countries, not just the US, require such usage.[[/note]] and describe a foreign location as "''City Name'', ''Country''" to parallel that[[note]]Come on, [[GlobalIgnorance did you really expect Americans to know about other countries' first-level subdivisions and what cities they have?]][[/note]]. This works well in the USA, but becomes rather jarring and annoying for foreigners, who find it annoying that after being shown Tower Bridge (itself not to be confused with the same named, but golden bridge in Sacramento, California), the Houses of Parliament, and St. Paul's Cathedral [[Film/TheMummyReturns all in one shot]], they still need to say "UsefulNotes/{{London}}, England".

In France, the tendency is to ram the identifier into the town name itself, so one gets places like Sainte-Marie-sur-Mer and Sainte-Marie-de-Ré and Sainte-Marie-des-Champs, etc. However, there are also over a dozen places called just plain Sainte-Marie in France alone; here you would have to specify in which département the one you mean is situated. The English equivalent would be, say, "Springfield-in-Massachusetts" and "Springfield-on-Black-River". Some British towns, such as Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Stratford-upon-Avon, Ashton-under-Lyne, and Kingston-by-Ferring, follow this scheme as well, as do German-speaking towns and cities Neustadt an der Aisch, Neustadt am Rübenberge, Neustadt in Holstein, and Neustadt an der Weinstraße (four places called "new town" named respectively after a river, a hill, a province, and a scenic route). Canada follows the British model in a few places, notably Niagara-on-the-Lake[[note]]that is, Lake Ontario[[/note]], so-called to distinguish it from Niagara Falls down the road. The US is home to Washington-on-the-Brazos in Texas and Geneva-on-the-Lake, Ohio (the lake in this case being Erie), which distinguishes it from plain old Geneva, Ohio a few miles south[[note]] and, by extension, the original Geneva (both the canton and the city) in UsefulNotes/{{Switzerland}}, which, of course, is helpfully on a lake (Lac Léman)[[/note]].

* Inverted with a Nike ad during the 2012 London Olympics. Since they weren't an official sponsor, they couldn't explicitly mention the Olympics. They could, however, show athletes in all the ''other'' Londons around the world, as long as they didn't have any references to London, England, or to the Olympics. After some controversy, it was decided that this was legal. Watch it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYtMkhfQfa4 here]].

* An old ad for Capital One features a family complaining about their credit card service not offering them free airline miles for purchases, so the dad invents a machine to teleport them to their vacation destination. The father enters the destination as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Petersburg,_FL St. Petersburg, Florida]], with the family dressed in beach attire. The machine teleports them to cold St. Petersburg, Russia.

* Parodied in ''Film/TeamAmericaWorldPolice'': Every time the location changed, there would be a subtitle that stated the place's name and its distance in miles from AMERICA!.

* Most of those "solve-the-mystery" books (including ''Literature/EncyclopediaBrown'', of course) have at least one where the key to solving the mystery is knowing that there are apparently cities named London, Paris, Odessa, Athens, Jerusalem, or Palestine in Texas[[note]] There is not a Jerusalem in Texas, though the other towns exist[[/note]]. It's always one of those six, and more importantly, ''it's always in Texas.''

* In ''Webcomic/IrregularWebcomic'', the Series/{{Mythbusters}} decide to bust the Loch Ness Monster, so they head for Scotland. Unfortunately, they book a flight to the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow_Airport_(Montana) wrong Glasgow International Airport]].
* The ''Webcomic/{{xkcd}}'' strip "[[https://xkcd.com/2480/ No, The Other One]]" shows a map of the US with various towns and cities that share the name of well-known locations marked, from Houston, Alaska to Houston, Florida.

** "[[https://notalwaysright.com/an-evergreen-lone-star/125625/ How do you not know the area around Tyler, Washington?!]]" "... because you've called Tyler, ''Texas''."

** Yale College, Wrexham, Wales, was founded by a local man, Elihu Yale, who then emigrated to the USA and founded a second Yale College there. Fast-forward for over a century to when Yale College is fairly well established as an American university, and the successor college to Yale Wrexham is rechartering itself as a university. The Welsh college tried to reach back in its history and relaunch itself as Yale University, Wrexham. But as the subsequent court case pointed out with some force, just having the name first was no defence in law. (Yale, USA, could afford far better lawyers). Prifysgol Owain Glydwr/University of Wales, Wrexham had to find a different name, pronto. [[note]]it was graciously agreed they could use the Welsh-language ''Coleg Iâl'', though[[/note]].
** Gregg Easterbrook of ESPN.com loves obscure colleges with goofy names, his two favorites being [[http://www.calvulcans.com/index.aspx?path=football California of Pennsylvania]] and [[http://www.iupathletics.com/index.aspx?path=football Indiana of Pennsylvania]].

** New York State has a number of towns with the names of other places, such as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome,_New_York Rome]], [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greece_(town),_New_York Greece]], [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perinton,_New_York Egypt (a hamlet of Perinton)]], and even [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico,_New_York Mexico]], leading locals to quip that you can drive around the world in just a few hours.

** There is also an [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario,_Oregon Ontario, Oregon]].

* Maine has a ''lot'' of cities named after countries, which leads to the famous photograph of [[http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_MOYA2WwtOq0/Skqyqz_HqCI/AAAAAAAAAsM/V5590qMfHV4/s1600-h/signMaine062909.jpg a rather surreal road sign]].

* When Advertising/BurmaShave put up joke signs promising "[[http://www.snopes.com/business/market/mars.asp Free! Free! A trip to Mars/For 900/Empty jars!]]", they weren't actually expecting someone to take them up on it. When store owner Arliss French shipped in 900 jars he'd convinced customers to donate, the company gave him and his wife a vacation in Moers (pronounced "Mars"), Germany.

* In a particularly unpleasant example of even the Brits finding this trope useful, [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25659531 this BBC article]] about a US military helicopter crash near Norfolk, Virginia was written [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-25661782 the day after the BBC reported on a US military helicopter crash in Norfolk, England]].
* In UsefulNotes/{{Australia}}, much the same system is used for much the same reason, although place names tend to be derived primarily from British sources, with a scattering of native names and assorted other European names (mostly either those of early explorers of Australia or the sites of battles that British Empire troops fought in). While the situation is not nearly as complicated as that of the US (fewer states generally meaning fewer duplications), there are still, for example, places named "Richmond" in five of Australia's six states[[note]]all but Western Australia[[/note]].
** One example that has sprung up in relevance recently is Maryborough. The one in Queensland is known for being one of the bigger non-capitals, while the one in Victoria is known for being the hometown of [[UsefulNotes/NationalBasketballAssociation Matthew Dellavedova]].

** This wasn't really a problem for the two municipalities of Habo and Håbo until the internet showed up. URLs can't handle umlauts, leading to no small amount of confusion over which website belongs to which municipality.