Line #233 Main/SuddenlySignificantCity


1	The elevating of the status of an existing locale beyond its current stature in an {{Alternate Universe}} or {{Alternate History}}, or in a far-future {{Science Fiction}} setting.
2	{{UsefulNotes/Cleveland}} becomes the US Capital, UsefulNotes/{{Tokyo}} becomes the [[JapanTakesOverTheWorld World Capital]], UsefulNotes/{{Toronto}} becomes capital of the largest polity in the known galaxy, that sort of thing. The city may of course be very important today, but the transition gives it official political power on a stage above its current influence. At the other end, it can be a [[NothingExcitingEverHappensHere sleepy village]] that suddenly gains [[BoomTown much larger stature]].
3
4	The reasons for this vary. Sometimes, they just aren't given. Other times, other candidates for the position have been destroyed or invaded. Or perhaps they got lucky and economic conditions shifted their way.
5
6	Compare and contrast DyingTown.
7
8	----
9	!!Examples:
10
11	[[foldercontrol]]
12
13	[[folder:Tropes]]
14	* BigApplesauce.
15	* TokyoIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse.
16	* AliensInCardiff
17	[[/folder]]
18
19	[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
20	* After Tokyo gets destroyed, the Japanese capital is moved to Fukuoka in ''Franchise/GhostInTheShell''. While a major Japanese city in its own right, it doesn't have any of the fame of Tokyo, Kyoto, or Osaka.
21	* In ''Anime/LagrangeTheFlowerOfRinne'', the seaside town of Kamogawa suddenly becomes the most important city on Earth after aliens (well, extraterrestrial humans) make first contact there. {{Lampshaded}} in the second season, where a minor character notes that Kamogawa is now more important than Tokyo in the eyes of Japan.
22	* In the backstory of ''Literature/LegendOfTheGalacticHeroes'', UsefulNotes/{{Brisbane}}, Australia became the capital of the United Earth Government which was established after almost a century of warfare that left much of the world devastated and practically all major cities destroyed.
23	* In ''Anime/{{Rahxephon}}''. Apparently between 2012 and 2024 North Korea comes out of its shell and the Olympics are held in Pyongyang. Kabul hosts the 2028 games. Oh, and skateboarding is finally an Olympic sport.[[labelnote:What actually happened]]Paris is scheduled to hold the 2024 Olympics, Los Angeles 2028's, and skateboarding has already made its Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020. Well, one out of three.[[/labelnote]]
24	* District variant: in ''Anime/SpacePatrolLuluco'', Ogikubo (a district of Tokyo) became the most important place on Earth when it was made an immigration port for aliens. Justified, as every known planet turns out to have their own Ogikubo.
25	[[/folder]]
26
27	[[folder:Comics]]
28	* In ''ComicBook/GoldDigger,'' the Diggers family members aren't really [[WeirdnessMagnet weirdness magnets]] ''per se,'' but nonetheless, after their adventures, lots of weird cosmic entities tend to follow them home. Home is Atlanta, Georgia.
29	* In the [[MediaNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver]] and [[MediaNotes/TheBronzeAgeOfComicBooks Bronze]] ages, the little town of Smallville became world-famous for being the home of ComicBook/{{Superboy}}. Early ''Comicbook/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' tales showed Smallville in the 30th century having become a big city.
30	* In Creator/MarvelComics' ComicBook/TheNewUniverse, UsefulNotes/{{Denver}} becomes the US capital after UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC is trashed during a fight between two powerful paranormals. Possibly a ShoutOut to ''Literature/TheDoorIntoSummer'' example below.
31	* ''ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse'':
32	** Duckburg was originally a small farming hamlet that had sprung up around the decaying ruins of colonial Fort Drakeborough, built by Sir Francis Drake about 200 years earlier. The small community had been founded by a man named Cornelius Coot, who had been given the fort (that he rebuilt as Fort Duckburg) by the retreating British troops in 1818, and the deed to parts of the land was sold to Scrooge by Coot's grandson Casey when they met during the Klondike gold rush. Scrooge decided to base his business empire there, and Duckburg quickly ballooned into a massive city, though the city still honors Cornelius as their founder rather than Scrooge.
33	*** Before Scrooge's arrival, Duckburg experienced a brief period of importance during UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar, when, owing to its harbor and its easily defended fort, became a major Confederate position on the West Coast... At least until Donald's great-grandfather namesake blew up the fort, allowing the Union to take the town and return it to its previous unimportant state until Scrooge's arrival.
34	** ''ComicBook/TheLifeAndTimesOfScroogeMcDuck'': Dawson City was originally just a settlement at the delta of the Klondike and Yukon rivers consisting of a logging camp and a saloon catering to the workers. Then gold was discovered in the area, and it became the center of the Yukon Gold Rush, one of the last great gold rushes, and the population ballooned from 500 to 30.000... Including a prospector named Scrooge [=McDuck=].
35	** ''ComicBook/PaperinikNewAdventures'': In the 23rd century Earth is shown to have been unified, with the capital at Megadelhi, the future union of Delhi, New Delhi, and the rest of the metropolitan area in a single city.
36	[[/folder]]
37
38	[[folder:Fan Works]]
39	* ''Fanfic/EarthsAlienHistory'':
40	** The administrative capital of the [[TheAlliance Terran Treaty Organization (TeTO)]] is in Stockholm, one of the few cities on Earth that hasn't been destroyed and subsequently rebuilt at all during the numerous {{Alien Invasion}}s.
41	** In the MirrorUniverse, after the CivilWar in which Hoshi Sato and her followers [[MilitaryCoup seize control]] of [=TeTO=] and transform it into the [[TheEmpire Terran Empire]], she moves the capital to Tokyo as a homage to her ancestry.
42	* ''[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/empire-at-the-worlds-end-a-peshawar-lancers-tl.419033/ Empire At the World's End]]'', a more realistic take on ''Literature/ThePeshawarLancers'' based primarily on America, sees most of the cities on the East Coast (including Washington) wiped out by tsunamis created by [[DeathFromAbove the Fall]]. Afterwards, St. Louis becomes the ''de facto'' capital due to it being where the state governments hold a Constitutional Convention to try and create a new federal government (and where General Sherman sets up shop after staging a MilitaryCoup against the failing convention). However, as the Long Winter sets in, St. Louis becomes untenable as a long-term solution, so the government eventually relocates to Memphis, Tennessee instead.
43	* The epilogue of ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12441674/1/The-War-of-the-Worlds-Gravity-Falls-Edition The War of the Worlds: Gravity Falls Edition]]'' establishes that the UN-backed [[GovernmentInExile provisional American government]] is based in Honolulu.
44	[[/folder]]
45
46	[[folder:Film]]
47	* Radiator Springs in ''Franchise/{{Cars}}''. Goes from DyingTown to hot tourist spot after Lightning [=McQueen=] moves in.
48	* In ''Film/ThingsToCome'', Basra, Iraq is mentioned as the home base of the Airmen - and implied to be the new capital of the rebuilt united Earth.
49	* ''Film/EscapeFromLA'': After a PresidentEvil rises to power in post-WorldWarIII and post-CaliforniaCollapse America, he moves the capital to his hometown of Lynchburg, Virginia.
50	[[/folder]]
51
52	[[folder:Literature]]
53	* Chicago becomes the capital of the Solarian League in ''Literature/HonorHarrington'', the largest (by a couple exponents) human polity in the explored galaxy. The League was formed after a [[TheWarToEndAllWars war]] that devastated Earth to the point that only stayed habitable due to major assistance from the more developed human colonies, and the city explicitly has even 20th-century architecture intact, so it can be inferred that it became capital because it was one of the few remaining cities capable of the role and all candidates above it were devastated.
54	** The Talbott cluster was an unimportant backwater, destined to be swallowed by the expansion of the Solarian League despite the efforts of some leading businesspeople to economically advance it and forestall that possibility, until a nearby terminus of the Manticore Wormhole Junction was found nearby, suddenly bringing massive investment and providing an opportune ground for outside forces to trigger conflict between Manticore and the Solarian League.
55	* In the Creator/RobertHeinlein story "Literature/IfThisGoesOn", the theocratic dictatorship that now controls America rules from Kansas City, which is now renamed New Jerusalem. (Heinlein grew up in Kansas City.)
56	** In Heinlein's ''Literature/TheDoorIntoSummer'', Denver becomes the capital of the US after a nuclear war that leaves most of the East Coast uninhabitable.
57	* Likewise in Pat Frank's ''Literature/AlasBabylon''.
58	* The city of Texarkana ends up the center of a major empire following a nuclear war in ''Literature/ACanticleForLeibowitz''.
59	* Parodied in ''Literature/TheTwelveChairs'': Ostap Bender proposes to organize an international chess competition in the small town of Vasyuki, which would attract famous chessmasters and revitalize the city. Eventually it would become the center of Europe, the whole world, and the universe. Of course the whole scenario is just a plot to swindle some money from the residents.
60	* In Kenneth Oppel's ''Literature/{{Airborn}}'' series, Vancouver (or "Lionsgate City") has become the airship center of the world.
61	* In Creator/HarryTurtledove's ''In the Presence of Mine Enemies'', Omaha, Nebraska is the capital of the U.S. due to the destruction of Washington, DC, and a number of other major cities.
62	* In ''Literature/{{Worldwar}}'' the invading aliens destroy Washington DC with a nuclear bomb causing the US to shift its capital permanently to Little Rock, Arkansas. They also wipe out Berlin, and after the war Germany's capital is Nuremberg.
63	* In Turtledove's short story ''Vilcabamba'', the VestigialEmpire of the US and Canada is reduced to the Rocky Mountains after an AlienInvasion, and governed from Grand Junction, Colorado. During an uprising, the government moves to Craig after the Krolp take Grand Junction.
64	* In the ''Future Boston'' sci-fi anthology, aliens somewhat arbitrarily decide that all their interstellar trade with Earth will take place in Boston, Massachusetts. While that would be a big deal by itself, a clever local government official negotiating with her alien counterpart establishes the local port authority as a city agency, rather than state, federal, or international.
65	* In Creator/LaurellKHamilton's ''Literature/AnitaBlake'' series St. Louis, Missouri has become the supernatural capital of the United States. What CreatorProvincialism?
66	* In the ''Literature/GalacticMilieu'' series, the Remillard family somehow managed to successfully get Concord, NH to be designated as the capital of Earth. No explanation is given as to how they pulled that off, but it probably had something to do with Unifex remembering that this was the case when he first entered the StableTimeLoop that created the Milieu in the first place.
67	* In the ''Literature/SixteenThirtyTwo'' series, Grantville, West Virginia, USA becomes the technological center of Europe after AlienSpaceBats teleport it to 17th century Germany. Later in the series, Grantville remains significant as Europe's primary center for research and education, as well as a state capital, but proves impractical for major infrastructure due to surrounding geography. The town of Magdeburg, Germany -- rebuilt after a horrible sack of the city[[note]] which actually happened in real life and gave rise to a verb "magdeburgisieren" which means just what you think it means - even in an era of unspeakable horrors such as the Thirty Years war, both sides regarded the sack of Magdeburg as [[EverybodyHasStandards unspeakably heinous]][[/note]] leaves it in ashes and rubble -- becomes the capital of the new United States of Europe. Note that in real life, Magdeburg was a quite important city prior to the sack, but it never quite recovered from the attack which not only decreased the population from 30,000 to basically 0 overnight, it also all but ended its century-long role as an independent city-state that could openly flaunt the emperor and get away with it. 1632 seems to love this trope with other cities that in real life would go on to become rather important being knocked down a peg (such as [[spoiler:Hamburg which is shelled in a CurbStompBattle]]) or cities which by then had their best days behind them getting promoted to suddenly important (such as Lübeck, where the naval yard gets relocated to or Bamberg, which becomes capital of the State of Thuringia-Franconia)
68	* In ''Literature/{{Gadsby}}'', Branton Hills' population rises from two thousand to sixty thousand, and it becomes a full-fledged city rather than a town.
69	* After the ZombieApocalypse in ''Literature/WorldWarZ'', Lhasa is the world's biggest city, and Havana the world's financial center. Honolulu was the US capitol and UN headquarters during the war due to the Hawaiian Islands' distance from the zombie hordes, and Los Angeles became the economic engine of the US (all the now fuel-starved cars came in handy when the counterattack was launched and raw metal was needed).
70	* In the DistantFinale of ''Literature/TheHandmaidsTale'', somehow Nunavut has become the academic center of the world.
71	* The ''Daybreak'' series sees a lot of this, as modern civilization collapses: after the nuking of DC, Athens, Georgia and Olympia, Washington, become the capitals of [[DividedStatesOfAmerica rival successor governments]], Pueblo, Colorado, becomes the center of joint effort by those governments to counter Daybreak, San Diego becomes the capital of the newly founded Duchy of California, and the small town of Pale Bluff, Illinois, becomes the most important town on the frontier between the remaining civilized areas and the Lost Quarter.
72	** On the wider world stage, Buenos Aires becomes one of the most important cities on the planet, as Argentina emerges as one of the three most powerful nations in the post-Daybreak world. Also, it's where the new Pope relocates to avoid the devastation in Europe.
73	* In the ''Literature/{{Starfist}}'' series, the capital of the Confederation of Human Worlds is in Fargo, North Dakota, which apparently had previously been made the new capital of the United States after DC was destroyed in the SecondAmericanCivilWar.
74	* In ''Literature/TheStand'', [[BigGood Mother Abagail]] and [[BigBad Randall Flagg]] respectively choose Boulder, Colorado, and Las Vegas as the places from which they intend to rebuild [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic]] society as they see fit.
75	* In ''Literature/StarCarrier'', after most of the coastal cities were flooded, the capital was moved to Columbus, Ohio (now known as Columbus, D.C.). After Columbus was obliterated by a GreyGoo weapon, it's rebuilt, but so is Washington, so the latter is made the capital again.
76	* In the ''Literature/TerraIgnota'' series, nation-states have been replaced by Hives, large voluntary non-geographic governments, due to the ease of transportation. Two of their capitals are in Ingolstadt, Germany, and Alexandria, Egypt. The tiny village of La Trimouille, France, is also home to an important politician, and hosts many influential parties.
77	* In ''Literature/WolfishNature'', Siberia has split off from Russia at some point, and Krasnoyarsk becomes its capital. In addition, the main plot of the novel has all the governments of the world send agents to a small town in Siberia called Alzamay.
78	* ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'': The village of Emond's Field begins as a tiny {{Arcadia}}n backwater significant only for being TheChosenOne Rand's birthplace. Refugees from the West give it a huge population boom and a massive influx of talented tradespeople; Rand's childhood friend is elevated to local Lord by popular vote in defiance of royal authority; and, by the end of the series, it's poised to become the new capital of an independent nation.
79	* In the AlternateHistory ''Literature/LadyAstronaut'' series, Kansas City, KS becomes the capital of the United States (and center for the international space program) after a meteorite destroys Washington D.C. and much of the Eastern Seaboard in 1952.
80	* ''Literature/TheKrakenWakes'' by Creator/JohnWyndham: In the third act, with sea levels rising and London under threat of being completely flooded, the British government is forced to relocate to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrogate Harrogate]] in Yorkshire as their "temporary" capital. It's a good choice, as it's well above sea-level and at no risk of being flooded out, and it's a popular spa town and tourist destination so it has numerous hotels that can be commandeered for living and working space. [[spoiler: Its significance ends up being very temporary, as increasingly desperate resource shortages and HeadInTheSandManagement at the top end in [[SuddenLackOfSignal an ominous lack of contact]].]]
81	* ''Franchise/StarWars'' has a suddenly important ''planet'' in Eriadu. While the details change between Canon and ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'', in both it was an unimportant planet that happened to sit at a critical hyperspace junction until the arrival of the Tarkin family and their money and business sense propelled it to the "Coruscant of the Outer Rim", and with the Clone Wars its loyalty to the Republic (and later to the Empire) in spite of being surrounded by Separatist worlds and being the homeworld of Wilhuff Tarkin see it assuming the role of capital of the Greater Seswenna Oversector and later Oversector Outer (corresponding to ''the entire Outer Rim'').
82	* ''Literature/BlackTideRising'': When the federal government is officially reestablished at the end of ''Strands of Sorrow'', it's decided that DC is still too overrun by zombies to be able to function as a capital, so for the time being they'll relocate to the more secure Jacksonville, Florida.
83	[[/folder]]
84
85	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
86	* In the 1970s ''Series/BuckRogersInTheTwentyFifthCentury'' TV revival, "New Chicago" was the capital of Earth and its colonies.
87	* In ''Series/Jericho2006'', Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Columbus, UsefulNotes/{{Ohio}} become the [[DividedStatesOfAmerica capitals]] of what remains of the United States. Earlier contenders for the title included Sacramento, California; San Antonio, Texas; UsefulNotes/{{Cleveland}}, Ohio; Albany, [[UsefulNotes/NewYorkState New York]]; and Montgomery, Alabama. Most of the other major cities were destroyed in the series premiere.
88	* In ''Franchise/StarTrek'', San Francisco is the headquarters of Starfleet and Paris is the capital of the Federation (in ''Enterprise'', which takes place prior to the establishment of the Federation, San Francisco is the headquarters of the ''Earth'' Starfleet, and Paris the capital of the United Earth).
89	** ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' gives us a Suddenly Significant ''Planet'', in the form of the titular station's nearby planet Bajor. Before, it was just a provincial backwater recently freed from a forced occupation. With the discovery of the nearby Bajoran Wormhole, it suddenly becomes one of the most rare and important areas ''in the entire galaxy''. Suddenly, Bajor is the forefront of deep-space exploration, copious traffic, high-end research, and [[BreadEggsMilkSquick the first thing Dominion cruisers see as they enter the system to invade.]]
90	* ''Series/TheLastShip'': In the Season 2 finale, due to its surviving infrastructure and centralized location, St. Louis is declared the new capital of the United States.
91	** Season 3 reveals that Hong Kong is now the capital of China.
92	** Also in Season 3, as part of the [[DividedStatesOfAmerica division of America into semi-autonomous regions]] reporting to St. Louis, we see that New York, Des Moines, Texarkana, and Los Angeles become the regional capitals of the Northeast, Midwest, South, and Southwest, respectfully. (The capital of the Northwest is never mentioned.)
93	* In Season 3 of ''Series/ZNation'', after [[TheImmune Murphy]] goes full DarkMessiah, he sets up shop in Spokane, Washington, populating it with his growing following of brainwashed [[HalfHumanHybrid zombie-human "blends"]] and using its natural resources and surviving infrastructure as a stepping stone towards rebuilding society.
94	* While New York is hardly insignificant, in ''Series/{{Defiance}}'' it becomes the capital of the Earth Republic, one of the two surviving nations on the planet (and the only human-dominated one).
95	* In ''Series/FTLNewsfeed'', Chicago becomes the capital of the [[ExpandedStatesOfAmerica North American Union]].
96	* ''Plutón B.R.B. Nero'' is a Spanish comedy sci-fi series, with the opening narration explaining: "Year 2530. Situation on planet Earth is hopeless. (...) Unregulated construction of semi-detached houses in the North Pole causes the rise of waters, sinking cities like New York, London, and Benidorm." Benidorm is a 67,000-inhabitant tourist resort in Spain. At least it's a coastal one.
97	* ''Series/Avenue5'': At some point in the near future, the US capital was moved to Buffalo, New York.
98	[[/folder]]
99
100	[[folder:Magazines]]
101	* An article in the ''Journal of Irreproducible Results'' hypothesized that accumulated issues of ''Magazine/NationalGeographic'' could depress the North American crust enough to put many U.S. cities underwater, though some towns would actually prosper in this nightmare scenario: "Yazoo, Mississippi would become a major seaport; certainly a possibility that has not been dreamed of by town officials, even in their wildest imagination."
102	[[/folder]]
103
104	[[folder:Music]]
105	* Music/SamHui's "Bauhinia" (洋紫荊) alludes to UsefulNotes/HongKong's status as this in its first stanza, going from a tiny fishing port to a bustling NeonCity and "Shopper's Paradise".
106	-->''[This] little fishing island [has] experienced the waves of history'' [[note]]捕魚小島遍歷風浪[[/note]]\
107	''[Located] in a small corner of the Earth, yet it carries such fame'' [[note]]在地球一小角卻負名望[[/note]]
108	* In Music/WesleyWillis's song ''I'm the Daddy of Rock And Roll'', he informs the listener that "Back in 1991, I used to hit old people with folding chairs. Suddenly, I moved to the north side of Chicago, Illinois in the summer of 1992!"
109	[[/folder]]
110
111	[[folder:Religion]]
112	* "'But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.'" (Matthew 2:6, citing Micah 5:2)
113	** Also Nazareth was just a tiny town of probably less than 500 people of dubious reputation until one former local started a movement that grew into one of the world's largest religions.
114	[[/folder]]
115
116	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
117	* The New Earth Government and a lot of its industry is headquartered in Chicago in ''TabletopGame/CthulhuTech''. With the Deep Ones threatening coastal areas, the Migou moving in from the poles, and the Rapine Storm trampling over Eurasia it's probably the safest major city on the planet, too.
118	* ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'': When the game first started, Seattle was chosen as its central city because it was somewhat obscure; obviously, real life caught up with it. In-game, the reason Seattle is significant is that, after the US completely fell apart between plagues, Internet failures, and an indigenous insurgency after the return of magic, Seattle ended up the only West Coast port city(-state) in the United and Canadian States.
119	[[/folder]]
120
121	[[folder:Video Games]]
122	* The [[BalkanizeMe destabilization]] of the United States in ''VideoGame/CookServeDelicious'', along with the destruction or depopulation of many of its major cities, has caused smaller cities to fill the vacuum through rapid urbanization. Only about half of the cities visited along the player's cross-country route in the third game would be familiar to the average American with only one, Nashville (also now the US's capital), which would have qualified as a metropolis prior to [[ApocalypseHow the bad stuff happening]].
123	* In ''VideoGame/FZeroMaximumVelocity'', a discovery of pure titanium had caused Bianca City to change from a small village to replacing Mute City as the center of galactic activity. All this in less than 40 years.
124	* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 1}}'': Shady Sands was a small wasteland settlement originally founded by some of the people from Vault 15, but ended up becoming the birthplace of the New California Republic thanks to the actions of the Vault Dweller. Decades later, it's the capital of the NCR and one of the biggest cities in the post-apocalyptic world.
125	[[/folder]]
126
127	[[folder:Web Comics]]
128	* In ''[[http://www.rockpapercynic.com/littleworlds/ Little Worlds]]'', Halifax (the city in Canada, not in the UK) is treated as though it were a much more urban of a center than it actually is.
129	* ''Webcomic/StandStillStaySilent'': All non-Iceland countries have a new capital:
130	** Norway has Aurland instead of Oslo.
131	** Sweden has Mora instead of Stockholm.
132	** Denmark has Rønne instead of Copenhagen.
133	** Finland has Saimaa instead of Helsinki.
134	** Iceland still has Reykjavík as its capital, but is now the most populated country in the Known World (yes, the DepopulationBomb hit ''that'' hard in the other countries, and Iceland is still down to 60% of the population it had in real life when the comic started being published).
135	[[/folder]]
136
137	[[folder:Web Original]]
138	* ''Literature/DecadesOfDarkness'': After Washington gets burned down by the British (''twice''), the USA relocates the District of Columbia to Knoxville, Tennessee (which actually gets renamed Columbia). Meanwhile, Hartford, Connecticut becomes the capital of the Republic of New England.
139	* On the ''WebVideo/DreamSMP'', over the course of just several months, the faction Las Nevadas has turned from a mountain range terraformed into blank desert far from the main hub of the SMP, to a hustle-and-bustle hub for entertainment... and more importantly, ''lore'' and plot.
140	* ''Literature/TheFalconCannotHear'' sees several examples of this after the SecondAmericanCivilWar starts up:
141	** Juneau, Alaska effectively acts as the capital of the "Khaki" military government once they lose control of D.C. [[spoiler: after [=MacArthur=]'s death]], but by that point, the faction's mostly dissolved to warlordism, so Juneau really only controls the forces in Alaska itself.
142	** Huey Long's fascist "White" government is established in and run from Montgomery, Alabama. [[spoiler: When Montgomery is captured by the [[TheAlliance Red Oak Pact/Popular Front]], the surviving White leadership flees to Tallahassee, which lasts until Florida surrenders wholesale.]]
143	** The American Soviet Republic is based in Chicago, which was the first city government to be overthrown by the Communist revolutionaries. [[spoiler: When the ASR is facing final defeat, its government briefly relocates to Springfield, Illinois.]]
144	** After the East Coast soviets break away from the ASR and form the American Workers Collective, New York serves as their capital.
145	** The Provisional Government primarily operates out of St. Paul, Minnesota, though due to being cut off by the other factions, its West Coast territories are run from Sacramento. [[spoiler:Post-war, with the Red Oak Pact victorious, St. Paul is briefly the capital of the entire United States, with President John Lewis even considering having it become the capital permanently due to it being the seat of his power. His successor Eisenhower, however, has it moved back to Washington, DC.]]
146	** The agrarian Continental Congress' capital is Oklahoma City.
147	** After declaring neutrality, and working out a deal with the Cuban government, Admirals Fletcher and Bloch use the Atlantic Squadron to turn Guantanamo Bay into the center of an American exile community, eventually evolving into a thriving city. [[spoiler:After the war's conclusion, it becomes an autonomous city-state within the Third Republic.]]
148	* In ''Literature/MagicMetahumansMartiansAndMushroomCloudsAnAlternateColdWar'', Phnom Penh is nuked in order to kill Saloth Sar (Pol Pot never changed his name in this timeline) before he can complete his [[GodhoodSeeker apotheosis ritual]]. Afterwards, the new ([[PuppetState Vietnamese-backed]]) provisional government is set up in Krong Svay Rieng.
149	* In the sci-fi series ''[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/so-that-worlds-may-align.441111/ So That Worlds May Align]]'', the capital of the [[TheFederation Solar Union]] is established in Lhasa, Tibet.
150	* In ''Literature/NewDealCoalitionRetained'', China's capital is moved from Beijing to Nanking following [[spoiler:the successful MilitaryCoup against the Communist Party regime.]]
151	* The divergence point of the ''[[https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/washington-burns-a-story-of-alternate-america.413571/ Washington Burns]]'' timeline is, as the name suggests, the total destruction of Washington DC during the War of 1812. After the war ends, it's decided that rebuilding the city is impractical, so it's abandoned, with the District of Columbia being dissolved and returned to Maryland and Virginia. After much consideration, the capital is moved to Cincinnati, which is incorporated, rebuilt, and renamed Franklin, with the surrounding area carved out of Ohio to form the District of Washington.
152	** During this timeline's Civil War, New England and New York form the Confederation of American States, with the city of Concord, New Hampshire chosen as its capital. Meanwhile, several other Northern and Midwestern states form the Free States Alliance, which is based in Philadelphia. And when the rebel forces take Franklin, the Union capital is temporarily relocated to Atlanta.
153	** After communist (or rather, communalist) revolutions take over France and several German states in the late 1800s, they unify as the Union of European Republics, with their de facto capital being in Strasbourg.
154	** In this timeline, the unified Italian states don't put their capital in Rome but in Naples... [[SubvertedTrope That was actually the largest city in Italy at the time]]. And the communalist revolution which takes over the northern half of the country establish their capital at Turin. Also, the war between these revolutionaries and the rest of Italy forces the Pope and rest of the Catholic Church leadership to flee the country for safety and set themselves up in Rio until the war's conclusion. And when the war is over and the country is permanently split in half, Rome is declared an independent city, which acts as home to the [[FictionalUnitedNations Global Peace Council]].
155	** At the end of the Global War, a populist revolution in Prussia ends with the Rhineland seceding and forming the German Republic, with its capital at Frankfurt.
156	** Chicago is eventually chosen as the location of the administrative headquarters for the [[TheAlliance North American Union]].
157	* ''Literature/TheFireNeverDies'':
158	** When the tide of the [[SecondAmericanCivilWar Second American Revolution]] turns irrevocably against the Whites and it starts looking like DC itself might be threatened, President Wilson reluctantly compromises with Congress' desire to evacuate the city (which he views as ceding what little legitimacy the Whites have left to the Reds) by designating Augusta, Georgia as a "backup capital" that the federal government will relocate to in case staying in DC ceases to be feasible. [[spoiler: This plan is never implemented, however, as [[GeneralRipper General Simmons']] coup of the White government accelerates the Reds' desire to end the war, leading to a full assault on DC that overwhelms it before what's left of the government can flee.]]
159	** In a case of already significant cities becoming even ''more'' significant, Chicago serves as the Reds' capital during the war, and after the war when they restructure the United States into the American Socialist Union, New York City (excluding Staten Island, which is ceded to New Jersey, but including Long Island and Westchester County) becomes the new federal capital.
160	[[/folder]]
161
162	[[folder:Real Life]]
163	* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gander,_Newfoundland_and_Labrador Gander]], a small town in Newfoundland, became famous on September 11, 2001, when American airspace was shut down due to the terrorist attacks. Gander's airport was a designated emergency landing strip for inbound flights from Europe, but the sheer number of planes was never planned for so the small town was suddenly forced to accommodate thousands of displaced passengers until airspace was reopened.
164	** Note that Gander had gone from being a tiny fishing village to being the main hub for airplanes flying from North America to Europe during the 1950s, but with the development of planes with longer range it slipped back into obscurity.
165	* The moderately important city of Byzantium was refounded as Nova Roma by Constantine I in 330 and became the capital of the East Roman Empire under the name Constantinopolis. It was always geographically important (being on a strait), but it wasn't Capital-of-an-Empire important.
166	* UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity and UsefulNotes/{{Philadelphia}} were the major seats of political, cultural, and economic power during and immediately after UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution. However, the southern state representatives insisted on a more centrally located capital, and a certain marshy site on the Potomac River near the settlements of Alexandria, Virginia and Georgetown, Maryland that no one wanted (but happened to be close to where UsefulNotes/GeorgeWashington lived) was available. Thus we have UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC.
167	* On July 20, 1847, there was almost nothing between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada. On July 21, the first Mormon pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley. Within four years, it had become the capital of Deseret, a proposed state that stretched from the Rockies to the Pacific coast. Congress cut it down into the Utah Territory, but Salt Lake remained the biggest city in the region for decades until surpassed by such cities as Las Vegas and Phoenix.
168	** Las Vegas and Phoenix are examples themselves, having been one-horse podunk towns until gambling became legal in the former and air conditioning became widespread in the latter.
169	* Canberra was basically a rural district with a small population until 1908 when, because of politics (that is, being between [[TheRival archrivals]] UsefulNotes/{{Sydney}} and UsefulNotes/{{Melbourne}}), it became the capital city of Australia. It's now the 8th largest city in UsefulNotes/{{Australia}} and its own territory.
170	* UsefulNotes/{{Bonn}}, a small town in UsefulNotes/{{Germany}} (to quote the title of a Creator/JohnLeCarre novel set there), was made capital of UsefulNotes/WestGermany for this reason. Berlin was impossible (West Berlin was still theoretically occupied and was surrounded by UsefulNotes/EastGermany besides), but the obvious candidates for capital (Frankfurt-am-Main and Cologne) were powerful enough to prevent the other from getting the job, but not quite powerful enough to get the job (not to mention that placing the "provisional" capital in a major city would make it seem like a ''permanent'' capital and thus an acceptance of East Germany as a permanently separate state; Berlin remained the legal capital the entire time); so the job went to Bonn, which is roughly halfway between them. Bonn became known sarcastically as the Bundesdorf (Federal Village) among the German people, and it turned out to be significantly more expensive than had it been placed in Frankfurt (which already had sufficient facilities to operate a national government out of, whereas they had to be built from scratch in Bonn). It also helped that [[UsefulNotes/TheChancellorsOfGermany Chancellor Konrad Adenauer]], despite being from Cologne (having been its mayor during the UsefulNotes/WeimarRepublic) had strong connections to the city (he studied and had family there). Since the government has moved back to Berlin after the end of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar, Bonn is still the seat of some federal ministries and institutions, but not nearly as many as they used to have. It was actually quite controversial to move the government back to Berlin, due to the city's prominence in [[UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany more]] [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany militaristic]] eras of Germany history, the fact that Bonn is closer than Berlin to [[UsefulNotes/{{Belgium}} Brussels]] (the [[UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion EU]] capital) and the fact that a bunch of brand-new government buildings had ''just'' been build in Bonn.
171	** For that matter, UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}} and Cölln, two small fishing villages on the Spree river, after slowly growing into a rural town, became the residence of the Margraves of Brandenburg, overtaking the old centre of Brandenburg on the Havel, then the chief residence of the Kings of Prussia, and in 1871 the new German capital.
172	* Ottawa was originally a backwater town that only existed because of the construction of Rideau Canal. It was incorporated as a city and given its current name two years before it would become the capital of Canada. It was chosen because it straddles the Ontario-Quebec border and its location made it more defensible from an American attack than the other major Canadian cities.
173	* UsefulNotes/{{Wellington}} was originally a minor planned settlement in the centre of UsefulNotes/NewZealand, with the seat of government in UsefulNotes/{{Auckland}}. That is, until 1865 when it was decided that the capital needed to be in a far more central location.
174	* Alexandria, UsefulNotes/{{Egypt}} which became a new center of Greek civilization after Alexander the Great founded it. Or rather, refounded it: it existed before (as the moderately-sized Egyptian port town Rakote), but he ordered a major expansion and its transformation into the Greek capital of Egypt. And then of course, he [[{{Egopolis}} named it after himself]].
175	* Tel Aviv was just a minor Jewish community near the mainly Arab port of Jaffa. In only a few decades, as more and more Jews came there after being persecuted elsewhere, it became the second-largest city in UsefulNotes/{{Israel}} and one of the Mediterranean's economic hubs. Also, most international businesses and embassies are stationed in Tel Aviv instead of UsefulNotes/{{Jerusalem}} (Israel's original designated centrepiece city) for two reasons: first the practical reason of a lower risk of terrorism, and second the legal reason that international law regards the Israeli presence in parts of Jerusalem as, if not illegitimate, then certainly pretty shady. (The US Congress passed a law in the mid-1990s requiring that the American Embassy be moved to Jerusalem but allowed the President to delay the move if it would negatively impact US national security. Clinton, Bush, and Obama have all availed themselves of this option, although to be honest the high land values in Jerusalem--who knew that the city would become so ''expensive''--might have as much to do with his as the political/legal concerns. Trump actually did move it; actually he just changed the US Consulate building to an embassy, and left the Tel Aviv one as a branch office. Currently there appear to be no plans by the Biden administration to move it back.)
176	** And, after most of the Palestinians left or were forced out around the time Israel was established, Tel Aviv basically swallowed what was left of Jaffa. It's reflected in [[ArtifactTitle the city's official name]], Tel Aviv-Yafo.
177	* Nyenskans was a small Swedish border fort-town. It was located on a bit of territory that Sweden ceded to the rising Russian Empire, and UsefulNotes/PeterTheGreat decided to build his new capital on the place. That's how St.Petersburg came into being.
178	* Earlier in Russian history, Moscow was a quiet town belonging to the Vladimir-Suzdal principality. The Mongols came, the old fiefdoms deteriorated, and a ManipulativeBastard prince came to rule in Moscow. Then one of his successors kicks some Mongol butt. Suddenly Moscow is becoming more and more important until its last prince reunites the shattered fiefdoms and founds the Russian Czardom.
179	* During the industrial revolution, a lot of small and formerly unimportant towns became large cities. Notable examples include [[UsefulNotes/TheWestMidlands Birmingham]] and [[UsefulNotes/FootballPopMusicAndFlatCaps Manchester]] in England, and Essen and most of the cities of the Ruhr valley in UsefulNotes/{{Germany}}.
180	** In the US, the same factors combined with western settlement turned UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}}, UsefulNotes/{{Detroit}}, and UsefulNotes/{{Pittsburgh}} from military outposts into major cities.
181	* In 1930 Aspen, Colorado, was an obscure former silver mining town deep in the mountains. Most of the silver had been extracted since its early boom years 40 years before, and [[DyingTown people were leaving]], so much that its population, once believed to have been over 10,000, was officially recorded as less than a thousand that year. Toward the end of that decade, some visionaries realized they could make money not from the shiny stuff ''in'' the mountains but the bright stuff ''on'' them, and began building a ski area. Since then it's not only rebounded but become a popular home away from home for many movie stars and corporate executives. Some individual properties are worth more than the entire town would have been in 1930.
182	* Aachen, an unimportant place with hot springs, became the home to Charlemagne's favourite palace in the late 8th century and as a consequence an important city, where the kings of the Holy Roman Empire were crowned until the 16th century. Then Frankfurt became the coronation city.
183	** Other towns and cities in the Holy Roman Empire that suddenly rose in status due to the favour of German kings and emperors were Goslar, Spire and Bamberg under the Saxons, Magdeburg under Otto I, Prague under the Luxemburgs, and Vienna under the Habsburgs.
184	* Munich, which eclipsed the older centre and Isar crossing of Freising due to the efforts of Duke Henry the Lion (who started by having the bridge in Freising burned down).
185	* When the northern Netherlands became independent, the old commercial and political centres Bruges, Gent, Brussels, and Louvain remained in Spanish hands, which meant additional importance for the new ones in Amsterdam, the Hague, Rotterdam, and Leiden.
186	* When a group of discontented students left the University of Oxford to set up shop elsewhere, the small town of Cambridge quickly became Oxford's equal as a centre of learning.
187	* Turku was the first, largest, and richest town in Finland for centuries - and her capital. Only Viipuri (Vyborg) at the other end of the Gulf of Finland rivalled it. There was a small, sleepy provincial town with a naval fort at the mouth of river Vantaa somewhere in-between those two. Come the Napoleonic era and Russian conquerors. They decided Turku was too close to Sweden and Viipuri too close to St. Petersburg. Where to move the capital of Finland? Hey, let's move it in between those two! The name of the small, sleepy, pictoresque provincial town with a naval fort? Helsinki. Conveniently at just the other side of the Gulf of Finland with the capital of Estonia, Tallinn.
188	* Wittenberg was a middling town in Saxony until a new university was founded there in 1502, and soon after that a certain Martin Luther was appointed one of the professors of theology there. Starting with October 31, 1517, the city then assumed significance for Germany and Europe as the centre of the Lutheran reformation.
189	* Mecca and Medina due to the rise of Islam.
190	* The changes of capitals and political centres of Japan due to decrees by emperors and shoguns: Nara, Heian-kyo (later Kyoto), Kamakura, Edo (later Tokyo).
191	* Similarly with the different capitals of China in places like Luoyang, Chang-An, Kaifeng, Nanjing and Beijing.
192	** While always a city, prior to its designation as a Special Economic Zone in 1984, Shanghai was moderately sized and surrounded by farmland. It is now the most populous city in China and the fifth in the world (or largest in the world if you look at cities and not metro areas). Areas that were once farms are now covered in high rises.
193	*** Shanghai's first rise in significance came when it became a major port city in the 1700s and was then designated a treaty port in 1842 (after the First Opium War). By the 1930s, it was not only a major financial and industrial hub and an international city with tens of thousands of long-term foreign residents (including British, American, French, and Japanese expatriates as well as White Russian exiles and Jewish refugees from Europe), but also the birthplace of modern Chinese popular music and the center of China's film industry.
194	* And in Ancient Egypt, with Akhetaton as a notable example of a capital city that did not long survive its founder.
195	* Done repeatedly in France after the Franks moved in. The most notable cases are:
196	** After spending the Merovingian times as the capital, Paris had lost its role to wherever the Carolingian and Robertian kings would decide to hold court. Then, during the last period of Carolingian rule, Hugh Capet, Count of Paris and descendant of the Robertian dinasty, lost his patience with the Carolingian inability to keep Viking raiders and even the Holy Roman Empire from attacking his lands, managed to get himself elected King of the Franks and to have his son crowned as a junior king, starting the Capetian dinasty, and moved the capital back to Paris. Aside for brief periods it remained the official and actual capital to this day.
197	** During the UsefulNotes/HundredYearsWar Bourges briefly served as the capital, as Paris had fallen to the invaders and their Burgundian allies in 1418 and Bourges was where the Dauphin Charles, the future king Charles VII, had taken refuge. Paris would be retaken in 1436 and resumed being the official capital.
198	** The small town of Versailles, a small village around which Louis XIII liked to go hunting, became the capital of France by the grace of Louis XIV until the French Revolution. It would briefly return the unofficial capital in 1871, the government moving there after the UsefulNotes/FrancoPrussianWar due the Paris Commune and its hostility to the conservative government until this suffered an electoral defeat in 1879.
199	** Bordeaux served as the go-to place for the government in case Paris was threatened by invasion, becoming the acting capital in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War, from 1914 to 1918 during UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, and very briefly during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, before it became clear it was going to be overran too.
200	** The small spa town of Vichy of infamous memory [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII between 1940 and 1944]] was previously only well known outside of France (in France, the spas were famous) because a French chef in America had decided to name a cold vegetable soup after the town, not too far from where he was born. The Occupation puppet government elected the town for the numerous hotels (which could be made into ministries). Vichy became [[NeverLiveItDown synonymous]] with LesCollaborateurs since then.
201	* A mining town tucked into the Wasatch Mountains of Utah was a backward, seedy place until its residents proposed to build a ski resort, which lifted its fortunes after the mines became unprofitable. But Park City became permanently if annually significant when the Utah/US Film Festival, soon renamed the Sundance Film Festival, moved there in a bid to attract interest to the American independent film industry.
202	* [[OverlyLongName El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Rio de Porciúncula]] was, for a long time, a smallish former Spanish mission town. The discovery of oil nearby in the late nineteenth century brought the population over 100,000. With the beginnings of the motion picture industry, which needed a location with long daylight hours and warm, sunny weather--and far away from UsefulNotes/ThomasEdison's New York and New Jersey-based lawyers (he claimed to own motion-picture technology and would sue anyone he could find using a movie camera without his permission)--in the early twentieth century, the city now known simply as UsefulNotes/LosAngeles inexorably became a metropolis with a seven-figure population.
203	* Within the state of UsefulNotes/{{Florida}}, this happened to two cities and one county over the course of the 1960s and '70s. Previously, the state had undergone a short-lived land boom in the 1920s, but the collapse of that during TheGreatDepression sank the state into economic malaise.
204	** Until TheSixties, UsefulNotes/{{Miami}} was chiefly a base from the US Navy, but it received a massive influx of UsefulNotes/{{Cuba}}n exiles after that country's revolution, causing it to replace Havana as the center of Caribbean finance and culture.
205	** Around the same time, Brevard County on the state's east coast went from a backwater to the heart of [[UsefulNotes/{{NASA}} America's space program]] due to the fact that Cape Canaveral was practically perfect as far as being a launch site for spacecraft. A collection of sleepy fishing villages, tourist towns, and farms transformed into a center of high-tech industry, science, and engineering virtually overnight.
206	** Orlando, like Miami, was chiefly a military town from UsefulNotes/WorldWarII through TheSixties, its citrus industry having long ago moved south after the Great Freeze of 1894-95 and its tourism and land booms likewise having been killed off by the Depression. Then [[Ride/DisneyThemeParks Disney came to town]] in 1971...
207	** A more infamous example was the cocaine trade during the 1980s, thanks to Florida's proximity to Latin America. Although the drug money led to a massive development boom in Miami, it also led to a massive crime wave, which became the inspiration for Series/MiamiVice.
208	* A RunningGag with the states ruled by the House of Savoy:
209	** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamb%C3%A9ry Chambéry]] was a small town, even if strategically placed at a crossroad through trading routes between Dauphiné, Burgundy, Italy and the future Switzerland, when the Count of Savoy Amadeus V made the place his capital. It would grow of importance twice again, first when the Kingdom of Arles (from which Savoy depended) effectively ceased to exist in 1313 and Savoy gained Imperial immediacy (basically they had a say in the running of the Holy Roman Empire), and then in 1416 when Savoy was elevated to duchy;
210	** In 1563 Turin's days of glory seemed to be long past, especially with the Savoyan conquest, when duke Emmanuel Philibert, recognizing that Chambéry's vulnerability to France was a liability with their Hapsburg-friendly policy, moved the capital there. Turin's importance would later increase again, first in 1713, when duke Victor Amadeus II became a king (initially of Sicily, then exchanged in 1720 for Sardinia) and Turin became the capital (even if the titular capitals of Sicily and Sardinia stayed in Palermo and Cagliari respectively, with Turin becoming the titular capital only in 1847), and finally in 1860, when Sardinia expanded to the whole Italy and was replaced by the Kingdom of Italy (though only temporarily: it was well known that they wanted to bring the capital to Rome, then in control of the Pope, and the idea was to move the government there as soon as the Papal States could be conquered);
211	** By 1798 Cagliari, titular capital of the Kingdom of Sardinia, had long lost its political importance to Turin. Then Revolutionary France invades and occupies the mainland territories, and Cagliari returns the ''de facto'' capital until 1814;
212	** By 1865 Florence had lost any kind of political importance, when, as part of a diplomatic manouver and proof that Italy had renounced to conquer Rome and what remained of the Papal States, the capital of Italy was moved there. It was doubly unexpected because the most important city of Italy after Turin was Naples (disqualified as the former capital of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, Sardinia's chief rival among the post-Napoleonic Italian states), and only lost due Turin being the capital (Naples would remain the largest and most populated city in Italy up until the early ''1920s'' before being overtaken by Rome's expansion);
213	** {{Subverted}} when the diplomatic manouver supposed to keep the Papal States independent failed and the capital was moved to Rome: the Eternal City's historical and cultural importance was such that everyone knew that Italy would have moved the capital there as soon as feasible in spite of Naples' greater population and political and economic importance, and in 1871, the year after Italy conquered the Papal States, Rome became capital of Italy;
214	** The small and unfortunately-named city of Brindisi (that's Italian for ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toast_%28honor%29 toast]]'') briefly became the capital of Italy from September 1943, when the Germans occupied Rome and most of the national territory after Italy switched sides during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, to June 1944, when the Allies retook the city and the government moved back in Rome;
215	** Also during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, the Italian Social Republic (Mussolini's puppet state under German control) had its capital ''de jure'' in Rome, but the seat of government was in the small city of Salò (hence the state's nickname of "Republic of Salò") and the ministries were in the cities of Milan, Verona and Brescia and the nearby town of Gargagnano.
216	* Upon Roman conquest, Milan had lost most of its former importance of capital of the Insubrians, with the most important city north of the Po river being Cremona. Then Cremona was razed in the civil war of 69 AD, and even after its rebuilding Milan remained the most important city of the area, even temporarily rising to ''capital of the Western Roman Empire''.
217	* A sort of RunningGag in the history of the Italian city of Cremona:
218	** At first Cremona was just one of the many settlements of the Cenomani Gauls, even if exceptionally well-placed on an easy crossing of the Po river and sufficiently above the Po to not suffer from the floods of the river. Then the Romans decided to expand in the northernmost portion of Cisalpine Gaul, and, after chasing out the Cenomani, built the outpost that would spearhead their expansion in the area and grow in a prosperous city;
219	** ''Immediately'' after the above, [[UsefulNotes/PunicWars Hannibal invaded Italy]] and got the Gauls to rise up. Thus Cremona acquired a strategic importance as an outpost in enemy territory from which to launch raids, importance that suddenly increased when the twin outpost of Placentia (modern-day Piacenza) fell to the Gauls;
220	** After losing most of its importance to Milan in the Imperial era, Cremona suddenly returned to be ''the'' Imperial base in Northern Italy when the Longobards overran large swats of Italy and the city, partially thanks to the Po allowing resupplying, was the one city north of the Po to remain in the hands of the Eastern Roman Empire until 603 AD;
221	** After being overran by the Longobards, Cremona returned to obscurity until the countess Matilda of Canossa gifted the city with the lands of modern-day Crema and enough money to rebuild the harbor. Middle-ages Cremona then became the most important city on the Po river, controlling most of the trade on it and earning the nickname of "Queen of the Po";
222	** During the wars between the Milan-led Lombard League of the city-states of Northern Italy and the UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire, Cremona's importance rose again, first as the mediator between the emperor and the League and later as the most important city of Northern Italy on the Imperial side;
223	** After the League's victory, Cremona's importance and trade fell, in part thanks to internal fights. Upon Milanese conquest, however, Cremona's importance rose up again as the harbour of Milan and a major trade center;
224	** After the fall of the House of Visconti, Milan was ruled by a restored republican regime with its duchy contested by its neighbours (including the superpower Venice) and other factions. The ultimate winner and new Duke of Milan, Francesco Sforza, was based in Cremona, meaning that Cremona conquered Milan and ''defeated a superpower'';
225	** At the start of the sixteenth century, the wars between Spain and France in Northern Italy devastated the area and ruined the commerce, reducing Cremona to a shadow of itself. As soon as peace and the commerce returned, Cremona returned to its former importance and above, becoming the second most important of the duchy after Milan itself until the plague devastated the city in the seventeenth century;
226	** Cremona was the adopted hometown of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Farinacci Roberto Farinacci]], one of the most important men of the [[UsefulNotes/FascistItaly Fascist regime]]. For obvious reasons, Cremona's importance suddenly rose again, and for now it's still there, albeit for different reasons (the local administrations managed to make the city a trading pole of the agro-zootechnic industry while Farinacci was bringing in cash).
227	* Once upon a time there was a largish town near the coast of Italy, born when the local villages joined together, that, while important for being placed on the only ford of a large river between the rich Greek colonies in the south and the equally rich Etruscan cities in the north (thus controlling both the trade of salt between the coast and the inland tribes and the trade between Etruscans and Greeks), was politically subject to the nearby city of Albalonga and, after it fell to their revolt, the Etruscans. The name of this largish town? Rome. And the rest is history.
228	** Already in the late years of the Western Roman Empire Rome had lost much of its political importance (while the presence of the Senate meant it was the titular capital, the actual one was either in Milan or Ravenna depending on where the emperor resided), and by the 19th century AD its main claims to fame were its illustrious past and being the residence of the Pope, with Naples, Turin, Milan, and Genoa having greater political and economic importance and, aside for Turin, populations. Then UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution kickstarted the Italian unification movement, and Rome's ''historical'' importance meant the capital would be established there as soon as feasible, immediately increasing its importance as the future capital (there were actually ''riots'' when it seemed the Kingdom of Italy had renunced to take Rome and move the capital). Once the Kingdom of Italy actually managed to move the capital there in 1871 the city's importance grew exponentially, with the population in particular more than ''doubling'' by 1901 and continuing to grow extremely fast until the 1970s.
229	* One of the earlier railroads in the Antebellum South decided to develop the end of one of their lines as a small town by the name of Terminus. Within a rather short time, it had grown, attracted more railroads, and been renamed Atlanta. By the time Sherman came marching and the city burned down it was not yet fifty years old but already the most important city in Georgia and consequently became its capital. By the time the Olympic Games of 1996 made it the center of the (sports) universe for one summer, the headquarters of CNN, Coca Cola, and the busiest airport in the world called Atlanta home. The airport has gained such fame or infamy that a saying goes "It doesn't matter if you go to hell or heaven, you will have a layover in Atlanta regardless"
230	* Although it was for a brief time, the city of UsefulNotes/{{Busan}} was the temporary capital of {{UsefulNotes/South Korea}} during {{UsefulNotes/The Korean War}} when the capital city {{UsefulNotes/Seoul}} was taken over by the communist army. As soon as the capital was finally taken back (after being retaken by {{UsefulNotes/North Korea}}) the Korean government returned to Seoul.
231	* There was once a small desert town in southern California with a quiet, sleepy atmosphere. A local real estate agency wanted to bring more people into this town, and part of their marketing campaign consisted of a big sign on a mountain with the town's name. This worked beyond their wildest dreams, as an entire industry moved over from New York City, appreciating the stable, dry climate and wide-open surrounding lands, and in turn bringing all sorts of people who wanted to become part of this industry and droves of tourists who admire them. This town would grow to become one of the most recognizable cities in the world and synonymous with this industry, people often using the city's name as a shorthand to refer to the whole business. That industry is filmmaking, this sleepy town is Hollywood, and the sign has become California's second most defining landmark after the Golden Gate Bridge.
232	** Part of the reason they moved to LA was because of the monopoly on filming equipment imposed by Edison Studios (yes, [[UsefulNotes/ThomasEdison that Edison]]). They figured that LA was worlds away from NY, so they could film all they want, and Edison Studios wouldn't be able to touch them. Some time later, Edison Studios was accused of being a monopoly and dissolved, but the film industry stayed in LA.
233	* Once, there was a small town on a peninsula by the sea named Yerba Buena, founded by American settlers on the site of an old Spanish mission and garrison. Then gold was discovered in the hills inland, thousands of people streamed into the area, and what was a sleepy little town of 1000 became UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco.
234	* During the gold rush, an indebted family raised money by selling their land in part of the Sacramento River's flood plain as residential and commercial lots, forming a town. It was repeatedly flooded, devastated by chloera, and once nearly entirely burned down. Despite that; the new California State Legislature moved the state capital there after briefly locating it in San Jose. And thus there is the city of Sacramento.
235	* UsefulNotes/{{Dubai}} has grown dramatically since oil was discovered in the emirate in the 1960s. The population quadrupled in the decade following, and eventually it grew into a massive financial hub with massive record-setting skyscrapers and fantastically luxurious real estate developments, with one of the world's busiest airport hubs. In 1960 (pre-oil) the population was 40,000; in 1985 it was 370,000; today it is over 2.5 million.
236	* UsefulNotes/HongKong has a rather colourful past, going from a humble fishing village to a British Colonial territory and eventually a densely populated city that is not only known as a shopper's paradise but also happens to be one of the world's leading international financial centres, being home to the SEHK (Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited), which is Asia's third-largest stock exchange.
237	* Hong Kong led to another one of these: the city of Shenzhen in Guangdong Province in the part of Mainland China that directly borders Hong Kong's New Territories. Until 1980, Shenzhen was the county town of a sleepy rural area that happened to contain the last stop on the rail line before Hong Kong. After the Chinese government decided to open the country to foreign trade, however, Shenzhen became the focal point for export-oriented manufacturing, as its location next to Hong Kong allowed it to be shipped from Hong Kong's giant port and allowed factories to get financing more easily from Hong Kong’s giant banks. Today, Shenzhen is arguably the world’s largest and most important manufacturing center and one of China's largest cities, home to over 12 million people (and possibly as many as 20 million based on some estimates).
238	* UsefulNotes/{{Houston}} underwent this twice in its history. After the FinalBattle of the Texas Revolutionary War, a plot of land in the nearby floodplains was incorporated and became the capital of the Republic of Texas just over a year later, but lost said status to Austin in 1840, basically becoming a rail terminus, especially for the booming port town of Galveston. A combination of Galveston's decline as a port after getting decimated by a hurricane in 1900, oil discoveries in Spindletop near the Louisiana border and the nearby towns of Humble and Goose Creek, the building of the Houston Ship Channel, and air conditioning lead Houston to become the largest city in Texas by 1930. The movement of NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center to nearby Clear Lake and the oil boom of the early 1970s lead to Houston becoming one of the largest cities in the US and a big name in the minds of a lot of people.
239	* This was half of the reason for the "Great Reform Act" of 1832 and Britain's last serious brush with another civil war. Enfranchising (and disenfranchising) boroughs with seats in Parliament had historically been haphazard and somewhat arbitrary or capricious, and after 1661 there were no enfranchising and only a single disenfranchising. This was not a huge problem for a while, but the steady march of this trope and its [[DyingTown opposite]] meant that by the early 19th century there were settlements with a dozen or so inhabitants left that sent two [=MPs=] to Parliament while cities with tens of thousands of inhabitants sent none. By 1832 the situation was about to boil over and an Act of Parliament was passed that expanded the franchise considerably and completely did away with the so-called [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotten_and_pocket_boroughs rotten boroughs]]. It wasn't a complete solution by any means, and it took another century to get universal sufferage, but it was a start.
240	* Several State Capitals fall under this category as they were placed near the geographical center and/or between major cities and population centers. Jefferson City, Lansing, Springfield, and Bismarck are some of the more prominent examples.
241	** Pawnee, KS was a failed example and stands out as perhaps one of the shortest terms of service for a territorial capital. Formed out of a small settlement of a handful of hundreds fresh immigrants (fresh being in the sense of having less than three dozen inhabitants two months before the 1855 election), it was declared the capital of the young Kansas territory by Governor Reeder, who had both free-soil inclinations and personal land interests in the area. The elected pro-slavery faction's first decision on seeing its western location was to move the capital to the Missouri border, leaving the capital after a mere five days. The capital of Kansas would ultimately be decided on the battlefield between an equally young pro-slavery settlement at Lecompton and the free-soil settlement of Topeka located at a major river crossing on the Oregon Trail, with the latter proving victorious.
242	* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karlskrona Karlskrona]], Sweden, was once nothing but sleepy farms and cattle land scattered across the archipelago of southern Blekinge, until 1680 when King Charles XI, the ruler of what was then the Swedish Empire, decided that the Royal Navy needed better access to continental Europe and to better defend against Denmark. The area happened to be ideal both due to the archipelago, and the natural harbor, which was carved right out of the rock. Today, the city has about 70.000 inhabitants and is considered a UNESCO World Heritage site due to the harbor and other remaining buildings from the Empire era. The city is named after its founder, the name translates to "Charles's Crown".
243	* At its start, UsefulNotes/{{Venice}} was nothing but a collection of fishing villages on the islands near the coast of North-Eastern Italy, if somewhat large in population due the influx of refugees from the mainland escaping Attila's invasion. After organizing themselves in a town they more or less lived on fishing while power in Italy shifted between the Western Roman Empire, the Ostrogoths, the Eastern Roman Empire and the Lombards, until the latters' invasion and a final influx of refugees turned Venice in one of two Roman outposts in Northern Italy alongside Cremona (and later the only one after Cremona finally fell to the invaders), and one powerful enough that it was turned into a duchy (to the Eastern Roman Empire, a semi-autonomous province of military importance similar to a ''theme'') allowed to elect its own duke, putting the basis for its rise to merchantile power and even a superpower capable of orchestrating the Crusade's conquest of Constantinople itself.
244	* UsefulNotes/{{Vancouver}}, British Columbia, was put very quickly on the map when the Canadian Pacific Railroad, which had previously planned on laying mainline track only as far as Port Moody, decided that better port facilities could be obtained further down Burrard Inlet. Victoria, which remains the provincial capital today, was a more significant settlement then and the nominal western terminal of the CPR, which had to settle for ferry connections due to its island location.
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Context Main / SuddenlySignificantCity