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November 10, 2006

U.S. Towns Named after Planets

During the recent U.S. mid-term election, the town of Jupiter, Florida was mentioned in the news because it experienced some problems with its voting process. Hearing the town’s name made me wonder if there were other towns similarly named after planets. I found out that there are many, and I’ve listed the states that have towns named after a certain planet, in order of each planet’s distance from the sun. Strangely (or not), there were no towns named after Uranus, but I did find one location that uses that name (see below). Also, even though Pluto was recently downgraded from its former planet status, I’m including it because I’m assuming these towns were named before that switch happened.

Mercury

  • Alabama
  • Nevada
  • Texas

Venus

  • Arkansas
  • Florida
  • Kentucky
  • Missouri
  • Nebraska
  • Oregon
  • Pennsylvania

Earth

  • Texas

Also:

  • Black Earth (Wisconsin)
  • Blue Earth (Minnesota)
  • White Earth (Minnesota & Maryland)
  • Earth City (Missouri)
  • Middle Earth (Maryland)

Mars

  • California
  • Pennsylvania
  • Texas

Jupiter

  • California
  • Florida
  • North Carolina

Saturn

  • Indiana
  • Texas

Uranus

  • Uranus Ridge, Idaho (not a town, but a topographic feature)

Neptune

  • Iowa
  • Ohio
  • Tennessee
  • West Virginia
  • Wisconsin

Pluto

  • Mississippi
  • Texas
  • West Virginia

Source: U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System

Posted by Morgen Jahnke in Language, Science & Nature | 7 comments »

7 Responses to “U.S. Towns Named after Planets”

  1. John Cooper said:
    November 10th, 2006 at 6:45 am

    These towns are certainly named the same as planets–but are they named after them? The “Earth” in several of the Earth names clearly refers to the soil, and it would be surprising if the founders of a few of these towns weren’t thinking of the gods for whom the planets were named.

  2. Joe Kissell said:
    November 13th, 2006 at 3:12 am

    John: Yes, I’m sure you’re right that some of these weren’t actually named with planets in mind, but we still think the coincidence is pretty groovy.

  3. Stephen said:
    January 27th, 2007 at 6:26 am

    Just mentioning: There is the township of Moon, right by the Pittsburgh International Airport in Pennsylvania. I happen to live 5 minutes south of Mars, PA, and know people from Mars.

  4. Rhonda said:
    March 13th, 2007 at 7:45 pm

    This is a great list. However, I can’t find some of these cities, as I want to find out population, anyone famous from these cities, etc.

    Can you help??

    Thanks, Rhonda

  5. Morgen Jahnke said:
    March 15th, 2007 at 7:45 pm

    Rhonda: I found these towns on the U.S. Geological Survey Web site (see above for the link) and I don’t have any further information about them. I’d suggest searching Google (if you haven’t already) to find out more about these towns. Sorry I can’t be of more help.

  6. Joan said:
    November 14th, 2007 at 1:05 pm

    I don’t think there is a Mars, Texas; however, there is a Venus, Texas. http://www.texasescapes.com/TOWNS/VenusTexas/venustx.htm

  7. Brian said:
    June 22nd, 2009 at 6:15 am

    Now that Pluto’s been demoted, you either need to leave it off the list, or in fairness, visit Pallas in PA and UT, Vesta, MN and Ceres (CA GA IA NY OK VA WA WV) as well.