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In casual language the name of a city is often given alone: "I'm going to Dublin. I'm from looking for a job in Palo Alto, etc." It's easy to forget that with over 165,000 cities in the world many are far from unique. The name of a city can give a glimpse into the history of a geographic region, whether named after a local person, prominent family, or based on historical power struggles and colonialism.

My project uses the state of Pennsylvania to explore the phenomena of cities with the same name. I have compared all cities in the state to a list of every city in the world, cataloging those with the same name as well as those where the city in Pennsylvania is a variant starting with ìnewî (e.g. New Salem). The countries that make up the list are represented with their flag. Clicking on a flag will plot all cities in the state with the same name as cities in that country.

An area that needs improvement in this project is the plotting of cities. Currently there are many overlaps that hinder readability for countries with lots of matches like England and Canada.

Source code: doyoumean

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