h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well?

There are numerous places in the world with four-letter names, for example Baku, a city with over a million people.

Are there are any three-letter places? Prizes go for big million-sized cities.

Are there any two-letter places?

Are there any one letter places?

there is a place in dumfries & galloway, scotland called AE

I understand there is a village called 'O' in China, and somewhere in Eastern Europe there is a 'T'. However this still has to be ratified.

LA is probably the shortest abbreviation for a very long name. Even Los Angeles is only a shortened form of the full name, which I can't remember.

According to my UK database, the shortest town names where an insurance claim has been lodges are Ayr and Bow.

I'll just log in to the other countries to see if anybody else can do better...

Of course there are shorter place names: In Serbia there is a place called Ub, and in Slovenia there is a village called Ig. There is also an island in Croatia, Iz.

Here in Norway there is at least one place called Å.

Obviously it's not the shortest, but there is a town called Nut in New Mexico.

How would you pronounce Å?
And, how complicatd is the Chinese form of O? (how many strokes in the character)

Å is a Norwegian letter which is pronounced "aw" as in law.

I think we'd have to rule out Chinese as most of their place names are one to three characters long - Bei Jing, Shang Hai, Da Lian etc.

There's always the town in Kerry by the name of "Inch"

By that reasoning, Mr Angstrom has the shortest surname in the world!

Many cities or villages' names in France are two letters.
But at least the shortest is 'Y' in Somme area (north).

Prizes for million-sized three-letter cities? What about Ufa, Russia? Three letters, 1.1 million inhabitants!

What did I win?! What did I win?!

And there's another two-letter town in The Netherlands, called Ee.

You win a bottle of virtual champagne!

The shortest name of a place is Ae. It's two letters and located in Europe, the UK if I'm not mistaken.

Hi kissmyforce! If you read through the other postings you will see that there are many places with one-letter names such as Å and Y.

there is a place in france called 'Y'

Yes! There is a village in France called "A". It is situated a few Kilometres north of Gouzon, France and southwest of Montluçon, France. It is a village of wine-making.