30 Interesting Towns You Should Know About

The town of Dull in Scotland has been twinned with the town of Boring, Oregon since 2012. In 2013, the town of Bland, Australia joined them in what has become known as the 'Trinity of Tedium.'

2. In 2015, the town of Collecchio in Italy passed a law requiring the use of "silent fireworks" to help reduce stress on veterans, pets, children, and wildlife. While not completely silent, they are much quieter than traditional fireworks and can be more colorful.

3. In Stringtown, Oklahoma with a population of 400, 76% of the town’s 2013 budget came from traffic tickets. After a state investigation into excessive speed trapping, the town's police department was disbanded.

4. There is a town named Whittier in Alaska that has 217 residents and everybody lives in the same 14-story building. The building has a school, hospital, church, and grocery store.

5. In 2010, a couple purchased the town of 'Wauconda', in Washington, for just $360,000. It came with a café, a gas station, a post office, a four-bedroom house, and their own zip code.

The New Zealand town of Brightwater had 5 electric street lights in 1911 powered by a hydroelectric generator which was auto-controlled by a flock of chickens. At night, the chickens would go inside their coop and their weight would close an electric circuit, turning on the street lights.

7. A town in Florida was named Frostproof as a marketing ploy to claim that the town would never have a citrus frost. Less than 2 years after its founding a frost killed most of the citrus in town.

8. In the town of Laguna, Brazil a pod of Bottlenose Dolphin cooperatively fish with fishermen. The dolphin herd mullet toward the shore and signal the fishermen to cast their nets. They do this every day. Town records say that the dolphins and fishermen have been cooperating since 1847.

9. A small town named New Rome in Ohio with just 60 residents and 14 police officers used to raise nearly $400,000 annually from speeding tickets. The town was dissolved in 2003.

10. The town of Blowout in Texas, got its name when lightning struck a cave and ignited thousands of tons of ammonia-rich bat crap inside it.

A Russian town named Luchegorsk was once “besieged” by hungry bears with as many as 30 bears being reported circling the small town.

12. In 2014, a town named Maryvale in Arizona was terrorized by packs of wild Chihuahuas, which defecated everywhere and chased children.

13. Chile has a civilian town named Villa Las Estrellas in Antarctica, complete with a school, hospital, hostel, post office, internet, TV and mobile phone coverage.

14. In 2011, a tiny Spanish town named Grañén on the brink of financial ruin bet on the world's biggest lottery and won.

15. The town of Harrogate, United Kingdom has been ranked as the highest per capita hazardous drinkers in Britain, but also the happiest place to live.

In the Spanish town of Brunete, council volunteers will send dog poo in the mail to dog owners who are seen failing to pick up their dog’s feces in public.

17. There is a town in Ontario called "Swastika". There have been several attempts to change the name but the town fights back saying "To hell with Hitler. We had the swastika first."

18. Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! in Quebec, Canada, is the only town in the world with two exclamation points in its name.

19. The town of Why, Arizona was originally to be named "Y" because two major highways, State Routes 85 and 86, originally intersected in a Y-intersection but the state requires at least 3 letters in its city names.

20. There is a town named Coria del Río in Spain where 700 people are descended from a 17th-century samurai who stayed there after an embassy returned to Japan. They have the surname "Japón", which was originally "Hasekura de Japón."

The town of Larkhall, Scotland, hates the color green so strongly that their Subway is painted black instead.

22. The town of Lauderhill, Florida was supposed to present actor James Earl Jones with a plaque for their annual Martin Luther King celebration. The company in charge of making it printed the name "James Earl Ray" on it. James Earl Ray was the man who killed Martin Luther King.

23. There is a town named Viganella in the Alps that does not get any direct sunlight for 84 days. However, the town fixed that by installing a giant mirror on the side of the mountain.

24. There is an underground town in the Australian outback called Coober Pedy. Half of its population lives below ground to escape the area's high temperatures.

25. In 1932, a small Austrian town named Wörgl greatly reduced unemployment by issuing a new currency that would automatically lose 1% of its value for each month that it went unspent. Hundreds of towns in the U.S. set up similar systems, but in 1933 President Roosevelt outlawed them.