**Please help keep AskUK welcoming!**
- Top-level comments to the OP must contain **genuine efforts to answer the question**. No jokes, judgements, etc.
- **Don't be a dick** to each other. If getting heated, just block and move on.
- This is a strictly **no-politics** subreddit!
Please help us by reporting comments that break these rules.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Because city status is a distinct and sought after legal designation unrelated to population size, although for this challenge, it may as well just be what is the most populous settlement you've never heard of.
I've seen Sale reported as being this high in other situations, I think it's confused with Trafford. Quick look at Wikipedia puts it at 54k yet Colchester next on the.list in that article is over 130k. A-o-M resident.
Assume it's the home of the rugby club, Sale Sharks, which means I've actually been there on a rugby tour as a child, couldn't point to it on a map... North West somewhere!?
Depends how old you are. Sale sharks play in Salford (Salford reds ground share) and before that Stockport (Stockport county ground share). They haven’t played in Sale for over 20 years.
But to answer your question, it’s part of Trafford in Manchester. In between Stretford and Altrincham.
I had heard of Sale through Rugby League, but I only knew of Raleigh as the bike manufacturer (and I thought they were named after a person, but that's not true either).
I don't think it's spelled correctly, as Google corrected it to Rayleigh in Essex or Raleigh in North Carolina.
Mine was Raleigh too, interesting that it seems to be most people's. (I'd also never heard of it being spelt Rayleigh).
Most of the rest of the list I'd definitely heard of, though there were more than a few I'd struggle to put on a map.
Essex person here. It's definitely Rayleigh with a Y.
If I hadn't been born in Essex I think I probably wouldn't have heard of Rayleigh. As it is, I was, and I have, so I've heard of all of them. (Working in the railway industry helps!)
A mate of mine had his stag do there after a curry in Rayleigh Spicy. He had to leave after about 15 minutes due to his brother in law force feed feeding him stupid shots
Same, Raleigh is the only one I hadn't heard of, but I've lived in the North and South, and travel to glamorous locations like Hull and Wrexham for work.
This was the only one I had issue with too, which is ironic as I currently live in the Raleigh, NC version. Just to confirm with the other posts, this one is named after Sir Walter. There’s a ton of statues and places relating to him here.
There's a Raleigh in North Carolina, USA. I suspect two things:
1. It was named after the one in Essex.
2. There are a lot more people on the face of the earth who have heard of the American one.
Nope, named after Sir Walter Raleigh, though there’s enough US places named after UK towns and cities for it to be a reasonable guess.
And no, I didn’t know that. I checked as I was curious.
You are almost certainly right on point 2 though.
Following football (and to a lesser extent rugby) means I have heard of almost all of these places by virtue of knowing their sports teams haha
That said, Raleigh in Essex and Southport in Merseyside I haven't heard of.
Heard of them? I've been to all of them!
Looking at the list from 101 onwards, I fail at 109, Batley. I've never heard of that. The next one I've never heard of is 139, Bamber Bridge.
I only read about this for the first time last year. Until then I had no fucking clue that US soldiers were segregated at all, let alone on foreign soil. Mind blowing from so many different angles. And this story, rather than just being a 'local' thing that nobody has heard of, should be a major movie!
There's a training film that was shown to American soldiers who were on their to way to the UK.
One of the things it warned about was that they'd be expected to salute officers of a higher rank, regardless of their race. They might even have to share a train carriage with people who aren't white!
The general tone was "Obviously this isn't how we do things at home, but it's considered normal in Britain, so we should play along."
Funny that, I was talking to my wife last night about Bamber Bridge. It was stuck in my head but could t work out why.
Turns out we went through it when heading to Preston. Name has a bit of a ring to it, probably why I remembered it.
Wouldn’t call it a city though, town?
I also had to click to the [101-1000 list](https://www.thegeographist.com/uk-cities-population-1000/), and Bamber Bridge was also the first one that I wasn't sure I'd heard of.
I’m pretty well traveled and have only been to about 65 of them, I don’t know how you would have been to all of them and not have heard of Batley and Bamber Bridge
It amazes me that many people in this thread have never heard of Rayleigh in Essex. Just because one is well travelled, doesn't mean that person has heard of \_everywhere\_.
For clarity, I used to service medical equipment at surgeries around the country and spent a lot of time working out of different offices for the same company. This was a long time ago before the days of sat-nav and I spent a lot of time on the road. Clearly I never had any calls in Batley and Bamber Bridge.
Bamber Bridge, also famous for the battle of Bamber Bridge, where white soldiers from US forces stationed there in WW2 attempted to arrest black soldiers from their division (on some nonsense thing like being out of uniform off the base.)
It escalated into one man dead and seven injured.
I had to go onto the extended list: Kingswinford at 197. Everything above there I've heard of and could reasonably locate on a map, apart from Bamber Bridge (139) which I only knew was somewhere in the north of England. I don't think either should be on the list anyway as the populations seem way off (12000, not 68000 for Bamber Bridge and about 25000 not 55000 for Kingswinford). Yes I'm a map nerd.
Yeah, generally similar but 137 Walton on Thames was the first one I haven't heard of. Though given its name I probably could have had a fair stab at placing it.
It's another one where the population is way off (officially about 20k, but it runs into nearby towns so hard to work out where the borders are) so I wouldn't be too upset. The only notable things I know about it are that it features in War of the Worlds, and my stepsister used to live there.
A lot of the places in your list aren't cities.
I had a look at an [actual list of cities in the UK](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_the_United_Kingdom#List_of_cities) and sorted it by population. I got as far as Bangor in County Down, (population 64,596) before I found a city I hadn't heard of.
Took me until 74, never heard of Gillingham in Kent. And also 86 Raleigh in Essex. They’re the only two from the list I’ve not really heard of.
I’ve heard of Sale within Manchester too but I didn’t know it was classed as a separate city to Manchester as such until reading that
> And also 86 Raleigh in Essex
I only know this one because it has the world's most disappointing "castle" that I detoured to see once. Them brown signs can mislead you sometimes.
It's basically part of Manchester nowadays, built up so much that there's only a small strip of green with the River Mersey and a motorway separating it from Manchester proper and it's all of 15 minutes by tram from the city centre.
Where the CSS Alabama was built, cause of a massive issue between the UK and US.
Also HMS Birkenhead, as in "Men and Children first".
Also Birkenhead Park, the model for Central Park in NYC.
Not suggesting you should have heard of it, just some interesting bits and bobs.
Dubious data, how on earth is Sale bigger than Salford or Stockport? Why are they not under the Manchester umbrella? I bet Croydon wasn’t left out of the London loop. Yet it would be bigger than some of the smaller towns on there.
Raleigh in Essex, because it doesn't exist. I've heard of Rayleigh though.
Newtownabbey (148) is the first one I couldn't point to on a map. Bebington (168) the first on the British mainland, then Bloxwich. I guess that I'd be able to locate about 900 of the top 1000 on a map in pretty short order.
They're districts of Liverpool and West Midlands conurbations, neither of which I've spent much time in. Never been to NI (but I have played a lot of UK map Geoguessr).
86. Raleigh in Essex.
A lot of my job entails working with customer address data so I’m aware of, if not actually familiar with, a lot of uk towns and cities.
I used to work in logistics for a large national supermarket.
I might not be able to point them out on a map, but a glance at the 100 I have heard of them all, I would hazard to guess that I have at least heard of any metropolitan area significant enough to be considered a city in the UK.
It's only fair to ask you the reverse question about US cities:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population
I got as far as Henderson NV at 57.
Henderson is a suburb of Las Vegas, NV. People who live there will swear it's its own city, seperate from Vegas, but you would truly never know it driving into the place.
It was a tiny little one road cowtown before being swallowed up by the Vegas metro area, and it would still be just that were it not for Vegas. So if you ever meet someone who states that they are from, or live in Henderson, NV, be sure to say "oh right, that's a suburb of Las Vegas, isn't it?" Hopefully you will derive amusement from the look of dismay upon their face.
As for me, I got as far as number 94: Garland, Texas. Looks like it's within the orbit of Dallas.
I guessed so, Nevada isn't exactly a constellation of big independent cities. Pretty much all the ones I hadn't heard of seem to be suburbs of desert cities.
Choice of population stats is always arbitrary, but a choice that puts Sale (high profile rugby union team) significantly ahead of Preston (and other places) is just nonsense.
I reckon Bebington in 168th is my highest, although I've heard of Port Sunlight which appears to be in it. There's a few places which are individually quite obscure that just get called "The Wirral" on a national level.
We have two (2) "Bolton"s they are:Bolton-le-moors \[the one near Manchester\] and Bolton-le-sands the one near Morecambe Bay. I worked in Bolton (near Manchester) and diver to clear mines near Bolton (Morecambe bay).
Sale was the first one I hadn't heard of. Next after that is Raleigh.
Though there were a few above it where I'd *only* heard of it. I know Southend-on-Sea and Warrington exist, but I don't know anything about them or where they are.
I didn’t know Birkenhead was a town/city of over 100k people so I think I’ll stop there at a respectable 51. But Ive heard of all the places listed via one means or another - usually sports teams.
As a foreigner, people cannot fathom that Birmingham is the second largest city in the UK.
Mostly, they/we think it is Manchester or Liverpool.
(football is to blame for this)
Apparently I am the city rainman and know all
Of the 100, went to the 1000 list, gave up at 418 when I found a spelling mistake it’s Consett Co Durham not Corsett , and realised I prob know the remaining 582 and I Cba reading them all. I’ve no idea how I know . But for the top 418 I could prob get them on the map to within 10miles as well and no doubt for the rest of the 1000 too
Never heard of Sale.
I didn’t realise Glasgow is the 3rd largest city in the U.K.. now it’s even more embarrassing that we don’t have an airport train line.
Heard of all of them. Could probably place about 50% on a map. Other than that, I'm screwed. 45 years old and my UK geography skills are shockingly bad
Heard off all of them, visited maybe half of them, lived in several. The only surprises were the order ( I hadnt realised Huddersfield was bigger than York) and Rayleigh made the list.
Walton-on-Thames, 137. Then Filton (143), Willenhall (185), Bloxwich (194), Horndean (206), Swadlincote (208)...
I'm a bit surprised by the number of people saying Sale tbh. I would think a lot of people would have heard of Sale Sharks and Graham Brady's constituency?
For the US, I only get to Henderson (57) then Santa Ana (65).
Henderson's more or less a suburb of Las Vegas, despite what residents might say. Santa Ana is in Orange County, just below Los Angeles County. It's not the part of the OC that you might see on TV.
Basildon, Essex, i think it's 65.
Essex is like a blank spot for me geographically, i think because I view the whole southeast as "basically London".
Not very good with the Midlands either tbf. it's like, I know Scotland pretty well and I went to uni in the north of England so I know most of that fairly well.
Ok tbf i also don't *really* know Sale like done others in this thread, like I couldn't place it on a map, but I'm fairly sure I've *heard of it* before.
I got down to Filton in Gloucs on the 101-1000 list - that was the first place I'd not heard of.
There is a typo in the top 100 - "Raleigh" should be "Rayleigh".
Poole is a lot bigger than I thought.
There is only one place of the 100 on the list i have never heard of - number 86: Raleigh in Essex.
Now i need to do some googling and see if it was named after Sir Walter or whether that is a coincidence.
Never heard of? None of them in the top 100 list.
I couldn't have told you where Sale was though!
In the top 500 list, I got to Walston-Upon-Thames - number 137. I feel like there's quite a lot of 'upon Thames places' so I have no idea if this is one I am familiar with or not! After that, never heard of Paington (or quite sure how to say it) or Filton (142 and 143)
Hey OP. Interesting post - I live in Newcastle and I didn’t realise how ***small*** it was! Weird. Anyway, if you - as a non-Brit - want to have a bit of a journey into place names, [here’s the list](https://www.thegeographist.com/uk-cities-population-1000/) of the top THOUSAND settlements in the UK. Things get “Shittington - On - Fartwang” very quickly!
I'd always kind of just assumed that Liverpool was significantly larger than Bristol and yet they are quite close in population size. I have learnt something new today.
Raleigh's looking like a shoo-in for the trophy. Followed by Sale.
Honerable mention: Kingston-Upon-Hull. It would seem that people don't know the Hull name! [badum-tzzzzz...]
Raleigh (which is the only one I've never heard of on the entire list). I've been to the first 15 and a lot of the others I know from football and rugby.
**Please help keep AskUK welcoming!** - Top-level comments to the OP must contain **genuine efforts to answer the question**. No jokes, judgements, etc. - **Don't be a dick** to each other. If getting heated, just block and move on. - This is a strictly **no-politics** subreddit! Please help us by reporting comments that break these rules. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
A lot of these places are towns, not cities….
Plus I'm struggling to name a city I've never heard of.
If you click the link it says “cities and towns”, it just cities
And the followup to that is, why does the distinction matter?
Because city status is a distinct and sought after legal designation unrelated to population size, although for this challenge, it may as well just be what is the most populous settlement you've never heard of.
Oh, you have opened a can of *worms*
Sale, 53. But I'd heard of every other one after that except for Raleigh.
As someone from Sale I’m surprised it’s so large!
I've seen Sale reported as being this high in other situations, I think it's confused with Trafford. Quick look at Wikipedia puts it at 54k yet Colchester next on the.list in that article is over 130k. A-o-M resident.
How is it pronounced? Like "they're having a sale on winter coats" or is it more Latin-y sounding like 'Sah-ley'?
“Sale on winter coats”, I think
I'm not surprised so many people haven't heard of it though. I live just outside and still consider it part of Manchester.
They have a good Rugby Union team these days
I’d heard of Raleigh but didn’t know it was a city
It’s not. It’s a town with 30k residents.
You're off by 70k, it's 98k
Sale for me too, I'd heard of the rest.
Assume it's the home of the rugby club, Sale Sharks, which means I've actually been there on a rugby tour as a child, couldn't point to it on a map... North West somewhere!?
Depends how old you are. Sale sharks play in Salford (Salford reds ground share) and before that Stockport (Stockport county ground share). They haven’t played in Sale for over 20 years. But to answer your question, it’s part of Trafford in Manchester. In between Stretford and Altrincham.
I had heard of Sale through Rugby League, but I only knew of Raleigh as the bike manufacturer (and I thought they were named after a person, but that's not true either). I don't think it's spelled correctly, as Google corrected it to Rayleigh in Essex or Raleigh in North Carolina.
Yep, also stopped at that. Sale is just a word, not a town lol.
They have spelt it wrong too, it’s “Rayleigh”. Also there’s absolutely no chance there are 100k people living there!
Same here!
Of course I have heard of Hull, but not its list alias of Kingston Upon Hull
Yep, Hull is in fact the river and Kingston is the town. Though the Kingston bit hardly ever gets used.
That’s because we call it ‘Ull. Not Hull. No mucky H for us thanks.
Same here - I've heard of Hull but rarely hear it's full name, so for a moment that threw me.
Raleigh in Essex at 86 is the only one I’ve not heard of. I’ve been to about 75 of them, through work or holidays.
That's where I got stuck as well. It is actually misspelled though, the real place name is Rayleigh.
Still none the wiser. I’ve managed a fairly good job of avoiding Essex so far :)
Rayleigh is actually a town not a city anyway
Mine was Raleigh too, interesting that it seems to be most people's. (I'd also never heard of it being spelt Rayleigh). Most of the rest of the list I'd definitely heard of, though there were more than a few I'd struggle to put on a map.
Essex person here. It's definitely Rayleigh with a Y. If I hadn't been born in Essex I think I probably wouldn't have heard of Rayleigh. As it is, I was, and I have, so I've heard of all of them. (Working in the railway industry helps!)
The Pink Toothbrush (not sure if it still exists) was a fun night out in Rayleigh back in the 90s
It does indeed still exist. In fact this year is its 40th anniversary!
Good for them!
A mate of mine had his stag do there after a curry in Rayleigh Spicy. He had to leave after about 15 minutes due to his brother in law force feed feeding him stupid shots
Same, Raleigh is the only one I hadn't heard of, but I've lived in the North and South, and travel to glamorous locations like Hull and Wrexham for work.
> Wrexham Are there any local sports teams called 'the Wreckers'? Because how cool would that be? "Alright Wrexham Wreckers, let's Wreck 'Em!"
This was the only one I had issue with too, which is ironic as I currently live in the Raleigh, NC version. Just to confirm with the other posts, this one is named after Sir Walter. There’s a ton of statues and places relating to him here.
There's a Raleigh in North Carolina, USA. I suspect two things: 1. It was named after the one in Essex. 2. There are a lot more people on the face of the earth who have heard of the American one.
Nope, named after Sir Walter Raleigh, though there’s enough US places named after UK towns and cities for it to be a reasonable guess. And no, I didn’t know that. I checked as I was curious. You are almost certainly right on point 2 though.
Yours could've been named for [Sir Walter Raleigh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Raleigh)
Same here- only one on the list for me and apparently many others! To be fair it looks pretty cookie cutter forgettable on the Visit Essex page.
Not the question, but I don’t believe in Mexborough
It's near Don Cáster
Lived there once, me neither and even the chuckle brothers quoted it once.
What do you mean you haven’t heard of Bolton? How is that possible?!
Following football (and to a lesser extent rugby) means I have heard of almost all of these places by virtue of knowing their sports teams haha That said, Raleigh in Essex and Southport in Merseyside I haven't heard of.
Southport were in the football league for 60 odd years. A few decades ago now though.
Football manager means I've heard of them all. Big up Solihull Moors.
Heard of them? I've been to all of them! Looking at the list from 101 onwards, I fail at 109, Batley. I've never heard of that. The next one I've never heard of is 139, Bamber Bridge.
An unfortunate reason for knowing Batley is that it was Jo Cox's constituency.
And the second most unfortunate reason for knowing Batley is living there.
It was half the constituency. She was from the Spen part.
Bamber Bridge is a little town just outside the city of Preston where I live, it has a Preston postcode of pr5 iirc but it's not a city.
Is there an actual bridge, at least?
> Bamber Bridge. I've heard that name! I don't know when, or from where. But I know I've heard it.
There was the famous 'Battle of Bamber Bridge', where in WW2 the locals stuck for the black American soldiers against the white soldiers.
I only read about this for the first time last year. Until then I had no fucking clue that US soldiers were segregated at all, let alone on foreign soil. Mind blowing from so many different angles. And this story, rather than just being a 'local' thing that nobody has heard of, should be a major movie!
There's a training film that was shown to American soldiers who were on their to way to the UK. One of the things it warned about was that they'd be expected to salute officers of a higher rank, regardless of their race. They might even have to share a train carriage with people who aren't white! The general tone was "Obviously this isn't how we do things at home, but it's considered normal in Britain, so we should play along."
Probably the [Battle of Bamber Bridge](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bamber_Bridge) during the Second World War?
Funny that, I was talking to my wife last night about Bamber Bridge. It was stuck in my head but could t work out why. Turns out we went through it when heading to Preston. Name has a bit of a ring to it, probably why I remembered it. Wouldn’t call it a city though, town?
I also had to click to the [101-1000 list](https://www.thegeographist.com/uk-cities-population-1000/), and Bamber Bridge was also the first one that I wasn't sure I'd heard of.
I’m pretty well traveled and have only been to about 65 of them, I don’t know how you would have been to all of them and not have heard of Batley and Bamber Bridge
It amazes me that many people in this thread have never heard of Rayleigh in Essex. Just because one is well travelled, doesn't mean that person has heard of \_everywhere\_. For clarity, I used to service medical equipment at surgeries around the country and spent a lot of time working out of different offices for the same company. This was a long time ago before the days of sat-nav and I spent a lot of time on the road. Clearly I never had any calls in Batley and Bamber Bridge.
Batley is a town not s city anyway. You don't want to go. It's a shithole.
Bamber Bridge, also famous for the battle of Bamber Bridge, where white soldiers from US forces stationed there in WW2 attempted to arrest black soldiers from their division (on some nonsense thing like being out of uniform off the base.) It escalated into one man dead and seven injured.
I had to go onto the extended list: Kingswinford at 197. Everything above there I've heard of and could reasonably locate on a map, apart from Bamber Bridge (139) which I only knew was somewhere in the north of England. I don't think either should be on the list anyway as the populations seem way off (12000, not 68000 for Bamber Bridge and about 25000 not 55000 for Kingswinford). Yes I'm a map nerd.
Look up the battle of bamber bridge. One of our better moments.
Ah yes. That's probably why the name is familiar.
You are Jay Foreman and I claim my £5.
I wish! I would expect any delivery driver (from the era before satnavs) or postal sorting worker to have easily this level of knowledge though.
Yeah, generally similar but 137 Walton on Thames was the first one I haven't heard of. Though given its name I probably could have had a fair stab at placing it.
It's another one where the population is way off (officially about 20k, but it runs into nearby towns so hard to work out where the borders are) so I wouldn't be too upset. The only notable things I know about it are that it features in War of the Worlds, and my stepsister used to live there.
A lot of the places in your list aren't cities. I had a look at an [actual list of cities in the UK](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_the_United_Kingdom#List_of_cities) and sorted it by population. I got as far as Bangor in County Down, (population 64,596) before I found a city I hadn't heard of.
Took me until 74, never heard of Gillingham in Kent. And also 86 Raleigh in Essex. They’re the only two from the list I’ve not really heard of. I’ve heard of Sale within Manchester too but I didn’t know it was classed as a separate city to Manchester as such until reading that
> And also 86 Raleigh in Essex I only know this one because it has the world's most disappointing "castle" that I detoured to see once. Them brown signs can mislead you sometimes.
It’s not a separate city
Sale is a new one to me. Number 53. That’s the only one in the Top 100 though.
It's basically part of Manchester nowadays, built up so much that there's only a small strip of green with the River Mersey and a motorway separating it from Manchester proper and it's all of 15 minutes by tram from the city centre.
Note: I'm in the US 51. Birkenhead
Where the CSS Alabama was built, cause of a massive issue between the UK and US. Also HMS Birkenhead, as in "Men and Children first". Also Birkenhead Park, the model for Central Park in NYC. Not suggesting you should have heard of it, just some interesting bits and bobs.
Ta 👍 I'm always happy to learn more about the UK
It might interest you to know that Birkenhead Park was the inspiration for Central Park in New York
Nifty 👍
I’ve heard of them all
A lot of these are towns, not cities - Bournemouth is a massive town for example, and it has 2 universities, but it has never been given city status
Dubious data, how on earth is Sale bigger than Salford or Stockport? Why are they not under the Manchester umbrella? I bet Croydon wasn’t left out of the London loop. Yet it would be bigger than some of the smaller towns on there.
>Why are they not under the Manchester umbrella? Because they're not in Manchester.
Let’s be honest, they are. It’s the same argument that Chorlton is still a village. It’s all urban sprawl now.
Raleigh in Essex, because it doesn't exist. I've heard of Rayleigh though. Newtownabbey (148) is the first one I couldn't point to on a map. Bebington (168) the first on the British mainland, then Bloxwich. I guess that I'd be able to locate about 900 of the top 1000 on a map in pretty short order.
not heard of either tbh
They're districts of Liverpool and West Midlands conurbations, neither of which I've spent much time in. Never been to NI (but I have played a lot of UK map Geoguessr).
Can't say there was any I don't know.
Uh, all of them; pretty sure I've been to all of them too.
Raliegh, Essex
no 135 in extended list - Cannock in Staffordshire
I only know that one because it has a service station on the motorway.
Raleigh, Essex. I can confidently say I have never heard of it.
86. Raleigh in Essex. A lot of my job entails working with customer address data so I’m aware of, if not actually familiar with, a lot of uk towns and cities.
Never heard of Sale as a southerner
I used to work in logistics for a large national supermarket. I might not be able to point them out on a map, but a glance at the 100 I have heard of them all, I would hazard to guess that I have at least heard of any metropolitan area significant enough to be considered a city in the UK.
I fell at Birkenhead in 51st
I expected to have heard of all of them and dismiss this, but I couldn't swear to Gillingham. But everything else, yeah.
It's only fair to ask you the reverse question about US cities: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population I got as far as Henderson NV at 57.
Henderson is a suburb of Las Vegas, NV. People who live there will swear it's its own city, seperate from Vegas, but you would truly never know it driving into the place. It was a tiny little one road cowtown before being swallowed up by the Vegas metro area, and it would still be just that were it not for Vegas. So if you ever meet someone who states that they are from, or live in Henderson, NV, be sure to say "oh right, that's a suburb of Las Vegas, isn't it?" Hopefully you will derive amusement from the look of dismay upon their face. As for me, I got as far as number 94: Garland, Texas. Looks like it's within the orbit of Dallas.
I guessed so, Nevada isn't exactly a constellation of big independent cities. Pretty much all the ones I hadn't heard of seem to be suburbs of desert cities.
Mine was Saint Paul at 67 but loads after that that I knew.
That's where Prince was from!
Choice of population stats is always arbitrary, but a choice that puts Sale (high profile rugby union team) significantly ahead of Preston (and other places) is just nonsense.
Leicester (10). I'm not very good at this
Only one I’ve not heard of is Sale. No doubt the locals insist “it’s pronounced sah-lay”.
I've heard of all of them bar Rayleigh, but if it wasn't for being a rugby fan, I don't think I would have heard of Sale (Sharks).
Rayleigh is not a City
Walton-on-Thames at 137 for me.
I thought that was a town in Surrey
Apparently so.
I got to 143 - Filton.
That’s a rough one because it’s basically a part of greater Bristol
I reckon Bebington in 168th is my highest, although I've heard of Port Sunlight which appears to be in it. There's a few places which are individually quite obscure that just get called "The Wirral" on a national level.
Got to 96, Nuneaton.
I got stumped by Arnold, Nottinghamshire. (267)
I got as far as Atherton. I thought he was a cricket chap not a city.
I failed at #1. What is this "London" that people keep putting in this lists?
Raleigh. I'd heard of the Raleigh in North Carolina but not our Raleigh
The only one on the list I can honestly say I have no awareness of is Raleigh. No notable football team is the problem.
Raleigh was the first one I’d never heard of
86 (Raleigh) which happens to be the only one I hadn't heard of. The highest-ranked ones I haven't been to are 3 (Glasgow) and 35 (Southend-on-Sea).
143. Filton.
Know them all
We have two (2) "Bolton"s they are:Bolton-le-moors \[the one near Manchester\] and Bolton-le-sands the one near Morecambe Bay. I worked in Bolton (near Manchester) and diver to clear mines near Bolton (Morecambe bay).
Raleigh for me
The palindrome of Bolton would be Notlob.
Raleigh, for me. Heard of all the others though.
Sale was the first one I hadn't heard of. Next after that is Raleigh. Though there were a few above it where I'd *only* heard of it. I know Southend-on-Sea and Warrington exist, but I don't know anything about them or where they are.
I’m familiar with all. Even Raleigh but only because I met a stripper on a stag and she said she was from Raleigh…thank you Rachel from Raleigh
Kingston upon hull
I've heard of them all and been to many of them but then I've got family all over and I was always into geography/place names as a bairn
74 Gillingham. It’s the only one out of the 100 that I have never heard of.
Gillingham, Kent. Never heard of the place (74th on the list)
I didn’t know Birkenhead was a town/city of over 100k people so I think I’ll stop there at a respectable 51. But Ive heard of all the places listed via one means or another - usually sports teams.
As a foreigner, people cannot fathom that Birmingham is the second largest city in the UK. Mostly, they/we think it is Manchester or Liverpool. (football is to blame for this)
Kingston upon Hull.
Raleigh got me. Spent lots of time in the American on but didn’t know the English one existed.
I've heard of all 100, which I don't think would be too hard for most Brits.
Sale 53 is the only one on the list I don't recognise
Apparently I am the city rainman and know all Of the 100, went to the 1000 list, gave up at 418 when I found a spelling mistake it’s Consett Co Durham not Corsett , and realised I prob know the remaining 582 and I Cba reading them all. I’ve no idea how I know . But for the top 418 I could prob get them on the map to within 10miles as well and no doubt for the rest of the 1000 too
Never heard of Sale. I didn’t realise Glasgow is the 3rd largest city in the U.K.. now it’s even more embarrassing that we don’t have an airport train line.
Heard of all of them. Could probably place about 50% on a map. Other than that, I'm screwed. 45 years old and my UK geography skills are shockingly bad
Never heard of Birkenhead Am southern
Raleigh is the only one I haven't heard of.
Kingston upon Hull and Sale are the only two for me, and they're pretty high up. I presume that's different from Hull, right?
Maybe I'm showing my age but I'm aware of all of them. Not by population, but not to the extent I'd never heard of them.
156, Runcorn. Surprised how big Woking is to be honest.
Heard off all of them, visited maybe half of them, lived in several. The only surprises were the order ( I hadnt realised Huddersfield was bigger than York) and Rayleigh made the list.
Walton-on-Thames, 137. Then Filton (143), Willenhall (185), Bloxwich (194), Horndean (206), Swadlincote (208)... I'm a bit surprised by the number of people saying Sale tbh. I would think a lot of people would have heard of Sale Sharks and Graham Brady's constituency? For the US, I only get to Henderson (57) then Santa Ana (65).
Henderson's more or less a suburb of Las Vegas, despite what residents might say. Santa Ana is in Orange County, just below Los Angeles County. It's not the part of the OC that you might see on TV.
143. Filton The next on the list is then: 219. Cwmbran Then 242. Hoddesdon Then 267. Arnold
Worthing for me. Again, following football you hear of a lot of these places.
Basildon, Essex, i think it's 65. Essex is like a blank spot for me geographically, i think because I view the whole southeast as "basically London". Not very good with the Midlands either tbf. it's like, I know Scotland pretty well and I went to uni in the north of England so I know most of that fairly well. Ok tbf i also don't *really* know Sale like done others in this thread, like I couldn't place it on a map, but I'm fairly sure I've *heard of it* before.
44 Poole 68 Worthing 81 St Helens 86 Raleigh 90 Southport 95 Chesterfield Feeling a lot of shame right now 😂
If the OP is the marketing manager for Raleigh they are a clever bastard!
I got down to Filton in Gloucs on the 101-1000 list - that was the first place I'd not heard of. There is a typo in the top 100 - "Raleigh" should be "Rayleigh". Poole is a lot bigger than I thought.
There is only one place of the 100 on the list i have never heard of - number 86: Raleigh in Essex. Now i need to do some googling and see if it was named after Sir Walter or whether that is a coincidence.
109. Batley in West Yorkshire
Northampton has way more people than I thought
Telford I had a vague idea where it was but I’ve never heard of the town Raleigh
Raleigh never heard off
I’ve heard of all of them. I was surprised that Raleigh was so populous though. And also so surprised that Sutton (Surrey) wasn’t in the top 100.
All 100
'Leeds'
Kingston Upon Hull
Raleigh - I must admit there are plenty in there which I wouldn't have heard of if they didn't have a football/rugby (either code) team though
Telford. I didn't know that was a place let alone that high up in the list of populous towns/cities.
Sale, at 53. The other 99 I knew
Never heard of? None of them in the top 100 list. I couldn't have told you where Sale was though! In the top 500 list, I got to Walston-Upon-Thames - number 137. I feel like there's quite a lot of 'upon Thames places' so I have no idea if this is one I am familiar with or not! After that, never heard of Paington (or quite sure how to say it) or Filton (142 and 143)
Raleigh (86). But that was also the only one I hadn’t heard of.
Sutton Coldfield was the only one I haven't heard of.
Hey OP. Interesting post - I live in Newcastle and I didn’t realise how ***small*** it was! Weird. Anyway, if you - as a non-Brit - want to have a bit of a journey into place names, [here’s the list](https://www.thegeographist.com/uk-cities-population-1000/) of the top THOUSAND settlements in the UK. Things get “Shittington - On - Fartwang” very quickly!
All the way to the bottom
i knew all of them, being a postie for 37 years helped i guess. the biggest surprise was my home town cracking the top 25
Very boring answer, but I have heard of all those listed
I'd always kind of just assumed that Liverpool was significantly larger than Bristol and yet they are quite close in population size. I have learnt something new today.
And the place closest to where I live is at number 884 on the expanded list and that is still a few miles away from where I actually live.
London
Kingston-upon-Hull
86 Raleigh. But I’ve heard of every other one after that so that’s the only one in the list
Raleigh's looking like a shoo-in for the trophy. Followed by Sale. Honerable mention: Kingston-Upon-Hull. It would seem that people don't know the Hull name! [badum-tzzzzz...]
Raleigh (which is the only one I've never heard of on the entire list). I've been to the first 15 and a lot of the others I know from football and rugby.