ST. LOUIS – Missouri and Illinois are home to hundreds of cities, neighborhoods and municipalities in the St. Louis metropolitan area and beyond. However, not all of them are easy to pronounce, especially for newcomers or out-of-towners.
Last year, FOX2 asked Facebook fans about some of the toughest places and things in the St. Louis area for out-of-towners to pronounce. Now, we’ve taken that challenge a step further, finding ten city names from Missouri and Illinois that might not be as easy to enunciate as they look.
Test your luck at some of these city names, some of which derive from the St. Louis region…
Missouri
Auxvasse
Bellefontaine
Canalou
Carondelet
Des Peres
Laquey
Nevada
New Madrid
Quiln
Versailles
Illinois
Athens
Benld
Cairo
Chautauqua
Du Quoin
Logoote
San Jose
Sauget
Vienna
Waukegan
Check Your Answers
How did you do? Check the answer key below…
- Auxvasse (Awes-vaz)
- Bellefontaine (Behl-fon-tehn)
- Canalou (Ca-now-lou)
- Carondelet (Kah-ron-duh-lay)
- Des Peres (Day-payr)
- Laquey (Lake-way)
- Nevada (Ne-vay-dah)
- New Madrid (New-mad-red)
- Quiln (Kyoo-lin)
- Versailles (Ver-seyls)
- Athens (Ay-thenz)
- Benld (Ben-old)
- Cairo (Kay-ro)
- Chautauqua (Shuh-taw-kwuh)
- Du Quoin (Doo-koin)
- Logoote (Loo-guh-tee)
- San Jose (San-johz)
- Sauget (Saw-zhay)
- Vienna (Vai-eh-nuh)
- Waukegan (Waa-kee-gan)
Fun facts
Six of the 20 cities and neighborhoods from this list are ones located in the St. Louis metropolitan area. Bellefontaine, Carondelet and Des Peres are all on the Missouri side of the region, while Benld, Chautauqua and Sauget are all in Metro East counties.
Reader’s Digest, which conducted a study just last month, said Benld and Quiln were named the hardest to pronounced states in Illinois and Missouri respectively.
The largest city among this list, Waukegan, Illinois, has a population of nearly 87,000 people. The smallest city among this list has a population of Canalou, Missouri, has a population of just under 200 people.