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Subjects

• Educational Technology
• Social Studies
  --Geography

Grade

• 3-5
• 6-8
• 9-12

Brief Description

Map the locations of the U.S. cities with the most common names.

Objectives

Students

• discuss the most common U.S. place names.
• map the locations of U.S. cities with the most common names.
• use an atlas, or an online map tool such as MapQuest or Yahoo Maps.

Keywords

map, cities, geography, map, common city names, place names

Materials Needed

• U.S. atlas or Internet access (Internet sources provided)
• U.S. outline map (sources provided)

Lesson Plan

Which city names are the most common ones in the U.S.? You might pose that question to your students as a way of introducing this geography/mapping activity. Write on a black/whiteboard or chart the city names that students suggest.

According to Wikipedia's List of Cities in the United States (scroll down to find "Most Common City Names"), the city names below are the most common ones. The number next to each city name represents the number of states that are home to a city of that name.

Franklin: 26
Clinton: 21
Madison: 20
Clayton: 19
Marion: 18
Salem: 18
Fairview: 17
Lexington: 17
Manchester: 17
Springfield: 17
Washington: 17
Cleveland: 16
Milford: 16
Oxford: 16
Note: Wikipedia includes only names of cities on their list. Other sources of information include names of villages, hamlets, and neighborhoods in their counts and call Fairview and Midway the most common names; other common names not listed above include Oak Grove, Centerville, Five Points, Mount Pleasant, Pleasant Hill, Riverside, Liberty, New Hope, and Pleasant Valley. (See sources 1, 2.)

Arrange students into pairs. Assign each pair one of the city names in the list above and have them use a U.S. atlas or one of the Internet map resources below to pinpoint the locations of their assigned city. Since students mapping the most common names will have more work to do (for example, Franklin has ten more instances than Oxford), you might give the city names at the top of the list to your more capable or geographically-proficient students.

Online Map Resources

• Expedia Maps
• MapQuest
• MSN Maps
• Rand McNally Maps
• Yahoo Maps

U.S. Outline Map Resources

• U.S. Printable Outline Map #1
• U.S. Printable Outline Map #2
• U.S. Printable Outline Map #3
• U.S. Printable Outline Map #4
• U.S. Printable Outline Map #5
• U.S. Printable Outline Map #6

Assessment

Lesson Plan Source

EducationWorld.com

Submitted By

Gary Hopkins

National Standards

SOCIAL SCIENCES: Geography
GRADES K - 12
NSS-G.K-12.1 The World in Spatial Terms
NSS-G.K-12.2 Places and Regions

TECHNOLOGY
GRADES K - 12
NT.K-12.1 Basic Operations and Concepts
NT.K-12.5 Technology Research Tools

See more Lesson Plans of the Day in our Lesson Plan of the Day Archive. (There you can search for lessons by subject too.)

For additional social studies lesson plans, see these Education World resources:

• Lesson Planning: Social Studies
• Social Studies Subject Center
• Teacher-Submitted Lesson Plans: Social Studies
• Geography A to Z
• Where in the World Is Mrs. Waffenschmidt?
• Mystery State
• Work Sheets from Teacher Created Materials: Social Studies

Education World®
Copyright© 2007 Education World

Originally published 12/13/2005
Last updated 10/02/2007