Google Sightseeing takes you on tour of the world as seen from satellite, using the free Google Earth program, or Google Maps in your web browser. Each weekday your guides James and Alex present new weird and wonderful sights as suggested by readers.
Yes, there really is a place in Austria called Fucking. In fact they liked the name so much, it seems that they also have several Fucking roads. Which f**king road would you live on?
Update: Welcome Boingboingers! We’ve had lots more funny placenames in the comments here, and yet more at Boing Boing, and now somebody’s located this excellent list of interesting or unusual place names on Wikipedia (and yes, there’s rude ones in there too!)
Thanks to Chris and Nev.
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Link to specific places either as a Google Maps page or a decimal latitude and longitude written like this: lat/lng:55.949400,-3.200000.
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Fucking hysterical!!!!!!
Trivia: They actually have quite some trouble with town sign theft. Fucking’s town signs probably are the most heavily secured in Austria.
For the non-german speakers: It is pronouced with a ‘u’ like in ‘true’
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fucking%2C_Austria for additional details.
Also check for e.g. ‘Kissing’, ‘Petting’, ‘Attaching’ or ‘Wedding’ in Germany.
Kerry, you are incorrect. The place is Fucking Austria not Fucking hysterical. There is no such country as hysterical. (Well, except for the U.S. since Bush has been in office.)
Uh-Oh, it seems hell has frozen over:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell%2C_Norway
Some other fun things:
We have Dildo
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
Boring
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
And my personal favorite, Shades of Death Rd
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
first non-imagery post, i believe.
Makes me kinda proud of my country.
There is also a village named “Killing”, which seems to consist of “Unterkilling” (Lower Killing), “Mitterkilling” (I translate it to “Central Killing” or “Middle Killing”) and Oberkilling (”Upper Killing”).
And of course, “Killing” doesn’t mean anything in German (or Austrian).
Killing can be found here:
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
(Still don’t know how to insert shorter links here)
Looking for funny/weird town names could become a huge project in its own right. I also remember a German magazine where, on the »entertainment page«, someone made tiny stories entirely out of place names, which were encoded using their zip codes.
What amuses me is that the roads are not even named “Fucking Road” (or whatever it would be in Austrian), just “Fucking”.
speaking of funny/weird names over different languages - take for example the city of Guadalajara in Mexico or lake Titicaca on the border of Peru and Bolivia: jara (in spanish pronounciation, or ‘hara’ in english pronounciation) means in hebrew shit, and ‘caca’ means poo…
Further to Flümo’s post, here’s Placemark: Kissing / Google Earth and Placemark: Petting / Google Earth, Germany.
Here’s a Wikipedia link of lots more, my own peronal favourites being Placemark: Boring / Google Earth, Oregon, Placemark: Climax / Google Earth, Michigan and Placemark: Dildo / Google Earth, Newfoundland and Labrador
Doh, Paradox beat me to a couple of those - it seems however that there has been a little bit of a problem with comments in this thread being held up in our moderation queue for some unknown reason…
“Fucking - not so fast, please”
http://www.planetesacha.com/Images/Fucking.jpg
From Martin Luther King to schoolboy naughty word spotting in one tiny leap.
The expression ‘From the sublime to the ridiculous’ springs to mind.
Just to add to the hilarity is some where really Dull.
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
Featured in the great book Far from Dull
http://www.sortof.co.uk/Dull/index.html
Hey come on lads ive given your book enough plugs - thought i should spread the love.
See also Hell, Michigan, north of Ann Arbor.
just imagine…. “Where’s Paris going?… She’s just here, Fucking around…”
I’m surprised that no one has pointed out that fucking intersects or becomes haid (look a little east).
In Germany and Austria many small villages do not have road names. They just use the town’s name for all streets. Of course you run into problems with the house numbers this way. Don’t apply as a mailman in such a town. Mostly, the numbers have been assigned 50 years ago and every new house gets the next free number - total chaos!
I could just imagine some 911 calls… (Yes, I realize it’s something else overseas…) “My wife and I had just gotten to Fucking and witnessed a wreck on a Fucking road. No, not that Fucking road. Better get the Fucking ambulance here fast.”
What’s with that Shades of Death Road? It looks like the crops have a monopoly on the chlorophyll…
Wank, Shit, Fuck and a pair of Tits.
It could be worse, you could live in Anus. There’s more, but I’ve had enough foul-mouthed fun for one night…
Of course, I’m sure everyone knows these, but I’ll mention them since no one else has. Pennsylvania has several, uh, unusual town names. For example, here’s how to get from Blue Ball to Intercourse…takes about 15 minutes…
Blue Ball to Intercourse
(The map isn’t marked Intercourse, but Google knew where Intercourse, PA was.)
I was here once physically, but am constantly here mentally.
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
About 5 mile NW of Brighton is a little village called Fulking. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulking - for the Wiki entry, would have provided a Google Map entry but my works PC is misbehaving on that front.
Come on, folks, play safe: don’t forget the French town of Condom
Re: Dan (#8) - a lot of small Austrian villages don’t have road names - the addresses are just a number and the town name (this led to much fun last year when I was walking around one village trying to find #10, not realising I was on the wrong side of the river).
There’s also an Placemark: Egg / Google Earth in Germany, which being a spa town proudly proclaims itself as Bad Egg.
I have a friend who lives here (seriously, I do)
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
Here you have another
butt hole lane 
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
OK — If only “National Lampoon’s European Vacation” had known about this place — “I’m Heinrich, and I’ll be your Fucking tour guide today for the Fucking tour. Take as many Fucking pictures as you want, and be sure to pick up a Fucking souvenier in the Fucking gift shop after the tour. If anyone has a Fucking question at any time, please let me know!”
I was surprised to find in a village in France called “le sale village”
http://www3.flickr.com/photos/straightfromthecask/200253822/
“sale” means dirty in french, you should
NOTE: i didnt make the photo of the link, but I took a photo in the same place!!
In Connecticut there’s a town called Mianus that was featured in an episode of “Jackass”. Johnny Knoxville went around asking townsfolk random questions…
“How long have you lived in Mianus?”, etc.
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
I’m austrian, and my favorite austrian town name is “Fleischessen” (sry, coulnd’t find it on Maps), which means “Eating meat”. They’re reported to be quite a healthy folk, actually. Additionally, the few times I drove through that town they didn’t have any strange look to mention
Talking about town names, do you know how many “Vienna” are in the US?
Answer: http://us-zip.com/?search=vienna (they’ve even got Google Map links!)
Gilbert: I live right near Vienna, VA- the one with the six Zip codes.
In follow-up to teknad’s comment (#28): sale in French (meaning dirty in English) becomes sales when describing multiple things, and today I cycled past the village of “Sales” in the French-speaking part of Switzerland:
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
It made me chuckle, there is even a “route de sales” on the map.
I’m surprised that nobody has mentioned “Moron” (or “Morón”) yet.
This seems to be the name of (at least) a Spanisch town, a Spanisch Airbase (Don’t know if there is a connection between these two), a town in Venezuela and a mountain in Switzerland.
It’s now been altered to show “Franking”……spoil sports!
no it hasn’t dd, are you mad?