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The story
A casual thread on 5ch’s Nandemo Jikkyo G board asked “which US state is the most obscure?” and posters quickly threw out names like Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Rhode Island, and Maine. Others pushed back, arguing that states home to famous tourist spots like Yellowstone and Mount Rushmore hardly qualify as “obscure,” leading to a split over how exactly to measure name recognition. Late in the thread, one poster pointed out that Indiana hadn’t been mentioned even once — highlighting just how little presence the state has. In the end, the discussion never landed on a single conclusion.
What people said
South Dakota
Rhode Island
Maine
Feels like these are the "Big Four" of obscurity, at least from a Japanese perspective
Maine used to often be written as "Mēn" in Japanese back in the day
Maine is famous as the setting for a lot of Stephen King's work
Maine's supposed to have amazing lobster catches
Sounds like a bigger version of eastern Hokkaido (rural, out of the way, nobody thinks about it)
Sure it's got nothing, but it's known for the aurora and kayaking — there's a river that's basically a mecca for kayakers
It's got Denali
Vermont ← Vermont Curry (a popular Japanese curry roux brand)
Idaho ← Idaho potatoes
Philadelphia ← Philadelphia cream cheese
There was a commercial that went "Call me Philly ❤" or something like that
"Maine," right on schedule (the running joke on this board)
One of the original 13 colonies can't be obscure — it's still New England, whatever else you say about it
Oh, it's "Mēn"? Had no idea
"Mein" is actually closer to the real pronunciation. It used to often be written "Mēn" in Japanese, but "Mein" has become more common these days
It's tiny, and basically just an extension of Massachusetts anyway
Same as how foreigners don't know Aichi Prefecture. Being #3 just doesn't leave an impression — like, what's Korea's third-biggest city? China's? Nobody knows.
Toshima Ward, home to Shinjuku, is pretty obscure as far as wards go too
Mass-a-choo-setch (a jokey mangled pronunciation of "Massachusetts")
Don't even know where it is
Never even heard of this one — did it get created recently or something?
Take South Dakota, for example — its capital is Pierre, and its biggest city is Sioux Falls, but both are pretty obscure. Though thanks to Mount Rushmore, some people might at least know Rapid City.
If anything, don't a lot of people remember them as pairs? North/South Dakota, North/South Carolina
I think the Indy 500 is pretty famous though
Background and Talking Points
There’s no official definition of what makes a state “obscure,” and the thread’s central tension comes from posters using completely different yardsticks for “name recognition.” One camp pushed back by pointing to famous landmarks or cultural touchstones — Yellowstone (Wyoming), Mount Rushmore (South Dakota), the settings of Stephen King novels (Maine) — arguing these states can’t really be called unknown. The other camp was talking about “obscure” at the level of barely knowing a state’s capital or even that it exists, and the two sides talked past each other for much of the thread. The observation that Illinois has a low profile despite containing Chicago, the US’s third-largest city, illustrates how population or economic size doesn’t necessarily translate into outside name recognition — a comparison also drawn to how Aichi Prefecture is barely known abroad. One thing readers might get wrong is assuming “obscure” simply tracks with a small population or land area; the thread suggests that indirect recognition through food brands — like Kentucky Fried Chicken or Idaho potatoes — can shape a state’s image just as much.
※This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “[Sad News] The Most Obscure State in America wwwwwwwwwwww” (the string of w’s is Japanese internet shorthand for laughter, like “lol”).
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