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Jul - General Chat - That US state survey from a while back New poll - New thread - New reply
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Taryn

Passed away.

Thanks for being a part of us, even if it wasn't always on the best of terms.

1987-2014


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Since: 09-01-09

From: Seattle

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Posted on 11-16-09 04:05:58 PM Link | Quote


Here I conducted a survey about US states and cities. I also got a few responses at another board and via E-mail for a total of 13, not as many as I had wanted, but whatever. At the time, I had said that I would reveal the point of the experiment later, but I kept forgetting and getting lazy about the whole thing.

Anyway, the survey started as a thought: Some US state capitals are rather obscure cities. I figure most Americans know about Boston, Massachusetts and Phoenix, Arizona, but what about Jefferson City, Missouri or Springfield, Illinois? I decided to determine what the most well-known city was for each state and compare it to a list of the state capitals.

In the survey, people were asked to name a city in each of the 50 US states. I received a total of 13 responses, mostly from Americans but some Canadians responded as well. The following data shows how many people named the capital for each state, and if the capital wasn't the most-named city, that city or cities is listed.

Total responses: 13

Alabama - Montgomery: 1 (Birmingham: 5)
Alaska - Juneau: 8
Arizona - Phoenix: 11
Arkansas - Little Rock: 7
California - Sacramento: 3 (San Francisco: 4, Los Angeles: 4)
Colorado - Denver: 8
Connecticut - Hartford: 7
Delaware - Dover: 3 (Wilmington: 4)
Florida - Tallahassee: 1 (Miami: 6)
Georgia - Atlanta: 9
Hawaii - Honolulu: 11
Idaho - Boise: 8
Illinois - Springfield: 1 (Chicago: 9)
Indiana - Indianapolis: 10
Iowa - Des Moines: 5
Kansas - Topeka: 5
Kentucky - Frankfort: 2 (Louisville: 5)
Louisiana - Baton Rouge: 4 (New Orleans: 6)
Maine - Augusta: 1 (Bangor: 4)
Maryland - Annapolis: 2 (Baltimore: 6)
Massachusetts - Boston: 10
Michigan - Lansing: 1 (Detroit: 8)
Minnesota - St. Paul: 1 (Minneapolis: 7)
Mississippi - Jackson: 3
Missouri - Jefferson City: 0 (St. Louis: 8)
Montana - Helena: 3 (Billings: 3)
Nebraska - Lincoln: 1 (Omaha: 7)
Nevada - Carson City: 0 (Las Vegas: 9)
New Hampshire - Concord: 3
New Jersey - Trenton: 1 (Newark: 3)
New Mexico - Santa Fe: 1 (Albuquerque: 8)
New York - Albany: 6 (New York: 7)
North Carolina - Raleigh: 2 (Charlotte: 4)
North Dakota - Bismarck: 0 (Fargo: 4)
Ohio - Columbus: 1 (Cleveland: 5)
Oklahoma - Oklahoma City: 5
Oregon - Salem: 1 (Portland: 8)
Pennsylvania - Harrisburg: 0 (Philadelphia: 7)
Rhode Island - Providence: 6
South Carolina - Columbia: 2 (Charleston: 2)
South Dakota - Pierre: 1 (Sioux Falls: 4)
Tennessee - Nashville: 6
Texas - Austin: 4
Utah - Salt Lake City: 10
Vermont - Montpelier: 2 (Burlington: 4)
Virginia - Richmond: 5
Washington - Olympia: 0 (Seattle: 9)
West Virginia - Charleston: 2
Wisconsin - Madison: 2 (Milwaukee: 4)
Wyoming - Cheyenne: 4

States for which the capital was at least tied for first place: 23
States for which no person named the capital: 5
States for which the majority of responders named the capital: 11
States for which the majority of responders named a single city other than the capital: 11
State with the most varied responses: New Jersey, with 8 (Trenton, New Jersey, Newark, Brick, Dumont, Atlantic City, Bayonne, Menlo Park)
Most commonly-named cities: Phoenix and Honolulu, both with 11 responses
Most commonly-named non-capital cities: Chicago, Las Vegas, and Seattle, each with 9 responses
Number of posts achieved with the posting of this thread: 4000

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Posted on 11-16-09 04:51:08 PM Link | Quote
Originally posted by Terra
Number of posts achieved with the posting of this thread: 4000
And then the rest of the post was forgotten. Great going, nice job. And stuff.

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Danika
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Posted on 11-16-09 05:34:05 PM Link | Quote
I came up with some more obscure cities myself, and some states were rather hard, like West Virginia (I actually came up with something different from Charleston)

I was also one of the few to come up with all 50 states, too... and congratulations on 4000 posts, Terra!

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Taryn

Passed away.

Thanks for being a part of us, even if it wasn't always on the best of terms.

1987-2014


Level: 204


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Since: 09-01-09

From: Seattle

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Posted on 11-16-09 06:30:26 PM (last edited by Terra at 11-16-09 03:30 PM) Link | Quote

Yeah, I tried to put some actual content in my milestone thread this time

Some people named a lot of capitals, actually. Maybe their schools made them memorize the capitals like I had to. I also had to know all the US Presidents in order.

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Posted on 11-16-09 08:46:52 PM Link | Quote
Congrats on 4K, Terra. Nice to see you put some useful content in it, too.

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Posted on 11-16-09 10:11:27 PM Link | Quote








Haha... that was pretty clever. Congrats on 4k Terra.

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Xkeeper

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Posted on 11-16-09 10:15:37 PM Link | Quote
Nevada - Carson City: 0 (Las Vegas: 9)



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Posted on 11-16-09 10:28:59 PM Link | Quote
I'm surprised Illinois's capital is obscure.

Maybe living in said state has to do with this.

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Danika
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Posted on 11-16-09 10:36:59 PM Link | Quote
I came up with "Beckley" for West Virginia, and "Pierre" for South Dakota... I actually got the capital of SD right, unlike most people taking the survey

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Posted on 11-16-09 10:49:05 PM Link | Quote

Time/Date

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Metal_Man88
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Well, it said name a city, not the capital city.

Anyway, I'm amazed I knew Fort Tallahassee. Perhaps it was from reading the location of people's stuff. That, and I'm surprised I knew the capital of Alaska.

I guess I know a handful of useful cities.

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Post 14214/23359
Posted on 11-16-09 11:13:13 PM Link | Quote
Back in middle school, my history teacher made us remember all of the capitals and to locate all the states on a map. This was for our final. We were given one state and we had to find it on the map and say the capital of that state. One state made up our final's grade.

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Taryn

Passed away.

Thanks for being a part of us, even if it wasn't always on the best of terms.

1987-2014


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Since: 09-01-09

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Posted on 11-16-09 11:15:50 PM (last edited by Terra at 11-16-09 08:23 PM) Link | Quote

Originally posted by Metal_Man88
Well, it said name a city, not the capital city.


That was intentional

If I asked people to name the capitals, the experiment would have been "How well do people know the state capitals?" The question I was really asking was "What is the most well-known city in each state?" to compare that list with the list of capitals.

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~Terra

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Lyskar
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Posted on 11-16-09 11:20:56 PM Link | Quote

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Metal_Man88
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Indeed. That's what I was pointing out to the other person--getting it correct was rather difficult, as it mattered on what you remembered most.

All in all, an interesting survey.

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Posted on 11-16-09 11:22:36 PM Link | Quote
Yea... it's still interesting how I named some lesser-known cities in the survey, considering that some states have no cities over 250K people or so

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Post 5170/11363

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Posted on 11-17-09 12:44:35 AM Link | Quote
Originally posted by Anya
Back in middle school, my history teacher made us remember all of the capitals and to locate all the states on a map. This was for our final. We were given one state and we had to find it on the map and say the capital of that state. One state made up our final's grade.


...Interesting final. Bet people were half split on hating and loving that one.

I was never very good at state capitals. I can only remember Harrisburg, Albany, Austin, and Juneau(?) offhand.

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Post 4628/10052
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Posted on 11-17-09 04:34:00 AM Link | Quote
Arizona and Hawaii were the only ones where everyone gave the same answer?

And how come we know so much about New Jersey?

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