This is a list of US places named after non-US places. In the case of this list, place means any named location that's smaller than a county or equivalent: cities, towns, villages, hamlets, neighborhoods, municipalities, boroughs, townships, civil parishes, localities, census-designated places, and some districts. Also included are country homes, castles, palaces, and similar institutions. The list below currently comprises around 1000 of these U.S. places but is not exhaustive yet.There are many places in the United States that are named after places in another country. By far, the majority of the names are due to immigrants naming their new home after their former home. As such they reflect the pattern of immigration to the United States. Immigrants did not just settle in random locations, but rather congregated with others who spoke the same language and had the same religion. Three examples:
Less concentrated groupings of foreign place names are Norwegian names throughout Minnesota, Czech names in southeast Texas, and Dutch names in the Hudson Valley of New York. The Hudson Valley locations are so named because the area was a Dutch colony before it became an English colony.
But not all the immigrants concentrated so heavily. Germans, for example, are one of the largest immigrant groups and places named after German cities are widespread across the United States. However, there is still a general concentration of them in the Midwestern United States, especially in Missouri.
Other sources of foreign names transferred to the U.S. are the Bible and ancient history. Biblically-sourced names are widespread and are sometimes the result of naming a settlement after its church. Names from ancient history can also be found in a number of places, although a concentration of them can be found in upstate New York. Names from these two sources can be found in the Ancient World section below the list of countries.
Places where battles happened are also a source for foreign names. The Mexican–American War is the most common source, but other wars, such as the Napoleonic Wars and World War I, are also represented.
There is a small number of names whose origin does not fall into the above categories. For example, some were given the names by railroads or taken from books the people naming the town had been reading. A few very unusual sources are Madras, Oregon, which was named after a bolt of Madras cloth seen in the general store, and Poland, Maine, which was named after a medieval-era song that the first settler liked.
Note that not all towns whose names are the same as a foreign city or country are named after that city. For example, there is only one US place that is known to be named for the Boston in England. That is Boston, Massachusetts. The Bostons in Indiana, Missouri, New York, and Highland and Summit Counties in Ohio, as well as Boston Corner, New York and South Boston, Virginia are named after Boston, Massachusetts; those in Georgia and Texas are named after people; while most other places with the name do not have a known etymology. Also note that places named after people are not on this list, even if that person's name can be traced back to a city. For this reason, cities such as New York, Baltimore, New Orleans, and Albuquerque are not on the list. Places named for people can be found at List of places named after people in the United States.
Some places have an indeterminate etymology, where it is known that they are named after a city in a particular country, but there is more than one place with that name and the etymology does not distinguish which one. These entries have "needs disambiguation" in their notes section.
| City or town | Namesake | |
|---|---|---|
| Algiers, Louisiana | ||
| Algiers, Indiana | ||
| Oran, Missouri |
| City or town | Namesake |
|---|---|
| La Plata, Missouri | |
| La Plata, Maryland |
| City or town | Namesake | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ballarat, Victoria | |||
| Brisbane, Queensland | |||
| Melbourne, Victoria | |||
| Melbourne, Arkansas | |||
| Rockhampton, Queensland |
| City or town | Namesake | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| named for the Battle of Wagram | |||
| City or town | Namesake | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Antwerp, Ohio | |||
| Bastogne Gables, North Carolina | |||
| Brussels, Illinois | |||
| Ghent, Kentucky | |||
| Hoboken | The original name Hoebuck was changed to Hoboken. | ||
| Liege, Missouri | Liege, Missouri was annexed by Bellflower, Missouri in 1960[2] | ||
| named for the Battle of Waterloo | |||
| Waterloo, Indiana | |||
| named for the Battle of Waterloo | |||
| [3] |
| City or town | Namesake | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shumen (formerly: Shumla) | Shumla, Texas | [4] | |
| City or town | Namesake | |
|---|---|---|
| Ava, New York | ||
| Mandalay, Louisiana |
| City or town | Namesake | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alma, North Dakota | |||
| Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia | Annapolis, California | ||
| Alymer, North Dakota | |||
| Ayr, Michigan | |||
| Brampton, Ontario | Brampton, North Dakota | ||
| Brantford, Ontario | Brantford, North Dakota | ||
| Calgary, Alberta | |||
| Chatham-Kent, Ontario | |||
| [5] | |||
| Devizes, Kansas | [6] | ||
| Galt, ON was amalgamated into Cambridge in 1973 | |||
| Glengary, Idaho | possibly named by David Thompson after his hometown[7] | ||
| Guelph, Ontario | |||
| [8] | |||
| Joliette, Quebec | |||
| [9] | |||
| Keswick Ridge, New Brunswick | Keswick, Michigan | ||
| Kinloss, Ontario | [10] | ||
| Moncton, New Brunswick | |||
| Montreal, Quebec | |||
| Ontario, Canada | Ontario, California | ||
| Orillia, Ontario | |||
| Oshawa, Ontario | |||
| Osnabruck ON was merged with Cornwall to form South Stormont in 1998 | |||
| Pictou, Nova Scotia | |||
| Quebec City, Quebec | |||
| [11] | |||
| Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec | |||
| Sarnia, Ontario | Sarnia, North Dakota | ||
| Sherbrooke, Quebec | |||
| Sidney, North Dakota | |||
| Simcoe, North Dakota | |||
| Strabane, Ontario[12] | Strabane, North Dakota | ||
| Toronto, Ontario | [13] | ||
| Uxbridge, North Dakota | |||
| Watford, ON was merged into Warwick in 2001 | |||
| City or town | Namesake | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jilin was formerly romanized as Kirin | |||
| City or town | Namesake | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cuba Township, Lake County, Illinois | |||
| Matanzas, Kentucky | |||
| Yara, Minnesota |
| City or town | Namesake | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Loucky, Nebraska | |||
| Domažlice (German: Taus) | |||
| [14] | |||
| Loucky, Nebraska | |||
| [15] | |||
| Karlovy Vary (German: Karlsbad) | Carlsbad, New Mexico Carlsbad, California | ||
| Malín (part of Kutná Hora) | [16] | ||
| Lidice, Illinois | renamed from Stern Park Gardens in July, 1942 in response to the Lidice Massacre; now part of Crest Hill, Illinois | ||
| [17] | |||
| Olomouc (German: Olmütz) | |||
| Pacov (German: Patzau) | |||
| Plzeň (German: Pilsen) | |||
| [18] | |||
| Slavkov u Brna (German: Austerlitz) | named after the Battle of Austerlitz | ||
| Vodnany, South Dakota | |||
| Vsetin, Texas |
| City or town | Namesake | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Denmark | Denmark, Maine | ||
| [19] | |||
| Torning | |||
For more cities in Egypt, see the Ancient world section below.