30 Interesting Facts about Villages – Part 2

The residents of the Spanish village Villar de Corneja near Avila, where the average age is 75, toast the New Year 12 hours before the rest of their countrymen in a collective decision to get to bed at a decent hour.

2. The Nazis massacred the entire village of Oradour-sur-Glane in France, killing 642 people, including 247 children. Unlike other Nazi village massacre sites, which were razed or rebuilt and marked by monuments or fields of roses, the charred remains of the village have been left untouched.

3. A village named Yangsi in China where no foreigners are allowed to visit has a population of 80 out of which 36 are dwarves. The exact cause behind this phenomenon is unknown.

4. Kodinhi, a tiny village in India's southern state of Kerala, has a surprisingly high twins birth rate. 42 out of every 1000 births is a twin, which is almost six times as high as the global average of around 6 per 1000 births. No genetic or environmental factor has been ascertained to this phenomenon yet.

5. Whitwell, a tiny English village twinned itself with Paris after writing to the Mayor of Paris proposing a twinning, receiving no reply, assuming it was fine, and so put up road signs declaring it official.

The houses in the Indian village of Shani Shingnapur have no locks or doors. The villagers believing that Lord Shani, the God of Saturn, guards the village and that thieves will immediately be punished with blindness, and anyone dishonest will face 7.5 years of bad luck.

7. Dulmial was a village in British India which is known for sending every able-bodied man to fight in World War 1. The village sent 460 soldiers, which was more than any other single village in what was then British India.

8. The village of Kaskaskia in Illinois is located on the west bank of the Mississippi River. In the early 1800s, it was on the east, and was even the state capitol for a few years, until floods moved the river and the town was left on the opposite bank from the rest of the state.

9. Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is the actual real name of the 6th largest village on the island of Anglesey in Wales. It is Welsh and translates to "St. Mary's Church in the Hollow of the White Hazel Near To the Rapid Whirlpool of Llantysilio of the Red Cave."

10. The population of the village of Nagoro in Japan decreased from 300 to a mere 27 due to depopulation so the locals started using scare-crows to substitute the people who had left or died. These scare-crows are placed everywhere (at bus stops, schools etc.). Today this village has more than 400 scare-crows.

Nearly 100% of the world's viagra pills are made in a small Irish village named Ringaskiddy. Locals suspect that it has gotten into the water supply as the men in the town have gotten very "excited."

12. In 1965, the Welsh village of Capel Celyn and its surrounding farms were flooded in order to make a reservoir to provide water for Liverpool despite protests from the locals and the Welsh Members of Parliament.

13. The Azerbaijani village named Qırmızı Qəsəbə is the world’s only all-Jewish town outside Israel and the USA. It is considered to be the world’s last surviving shtetl. Alongside Azerbaijani and Russian, residents also speak Judeo-Tat, the traditional language of the Mountain Jews.

14. There is a small village in Switzerland called "Chäs und Brot" (Cheese and Bread). It got its name in 1339 after Bernese troops ate cheese and bread there the evening before the battle of Laupen. The next day, they won decisively against the Burgundian army.

15. In 2014, Cormorant village in Minnesota elected a dog named Duke as their mayor. Duke received all 12 votes in that year’s election and went on to serve four full terms as mayor for the township of 1,039 people. His duties included: “hanging out at the local pub, and keeping the riff-raff out.”

A village named Omaui in New Zealand proposed to ban all domestic cats to protect native wildlife. Because there was significant resistance from its inhabitants, officials now only allow cats as pets as long as they are desexed and microchipped.

17. The village of Malana in India has strong taboos about touching anyone from outside the village, its own sacred language and an economy based on the production of strong hashish.

18. A village in India renamed itself Snapdeal.com Nagar after the company installed 15 hand pumps, so villagers no longer need to walk for miles to fetch drinking water. There had been no source of potable water in the village before.

19. The Portuguese village of Vale de Salgueiro features a tradition that, each year, causes an outcry among outsiders — parents encouraging their children, some as young as five, to smoke cigarettes.

20. A Polish village named Polonezkoy, in Istanbul, was founded by a Polish prince back in the 1800s and now has over 100 Poles, and its name "Polonezköy" means "Village of the Poles". Today’s Polonezkoy is one of the most preferred places in Istanbul to choose from an exciting weekend breaks, day trips.

The village of Imber in England was taken over by the Ministry of Defence for Americans to practice street fighting before the allied invasion of Europe in 1944. The occupants were never allowed to return. You can visit Imber once a year where you can attend a service at the 13th century church.

22. Naukan is a deserted Yupik village in Russia. It was once the easternmost settlement in the Eurasian continent. The eviction of the 400 indigenous inhabitants took place in 1954 with the objective of a possible military confrontation with the United States.

23. There is a village named Sweden Hills, in Tobetsu town, Ishikari subprefecture of Hokkaido Japan. Local residents completely adopted Dalarna Sweden’s tradition of wooden houses painted in Falu Red, celebrating the MidSummer Festival and organizing ‘Kraftskiva’ crayfish party.

24. There is a small village tucked away in the tiny Himalayan Kingdom 'Bhutan' where houses have paintings of penises on the outside walls. A temple dedicated to a Buddhist mad monk known as 'Chimi Lakhang' exists in the village where thousands of devotees are given blessings with a wooden penis.

25. The Essex village of Ugley is one of the many places in the United Kingdom with amusing or strange names. The village's branch of a long established women's organization used to be called the Ugley Women's Institute but changed its name after many years of jibes.