Discover 175 Cities That Start With F

Maybe you’re looking for clues to a crossword puzzle, putting together a project for school, or studying up for your guest spot on a television game show. No matter what led you to search for cities starting with the letter “F,” you found the right place! We’re going to hook you up with all the “F” cities of the world with a population of 50,000 or higher. There are 29 in the U.S. and 146 abroad, so that gives you 175 cities to work with, listed in two charts at the end of this article. But first, we’ll give you a sample of a few of them with pictures and explanations of how they got their names.

1. Fort Worth, TX

Established in 1849 on the Trinity River, Fort Worth is today one of the leading cities of Texas. The name of the city honors Army General William Jenkins Worth. Worth was a veteran of the Mexican-American War and had proposed building 10 forts to protect the Texas border. He died of cholera in 1849, but the founders of the settlement decided to honor him by naming the settlement Camp Worth, and later Fort Worth.

2. Fayetteville, NC

In 1783, the communities of Cross Creek and Campbellton combined to form Fayetteville, North Carolina. The new name honors the Marquis de Lafayette, a French hero who volunteered as an advisor to General Washington in the American Revolution. He visited it in 1825 on his grand tour of the United States.

3. Franklin, TN

Abram Maury, Jr., who would later become a state senator, founded Franklin, Tennessee in 1799. The city commemorates Benjamin Franklin, one of the country’s most famous and accomplished founding fathers.

4. Fountain Valley, CA

Historically speaking, Fountain Valley, California is a relatively new city, founded only in 1957. At that time the water table was very high in the area, so there were a lot of artesian wells there. This is how it got the name Fountain Valley. In the years since California has gone through years of drought that have made the city’s name a little less accurate.

5. Faisalabad, Pakistan

The city of Faisalabad, Pakistan, has had that name only since 1977. The country renamed it after King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, in honor of his financial support to Pakistan. The suffix “abad” means a settled or populated place. The previous name of the city was Lyallpur. “Lyall” was the last name of one of the British governors of Punjab before independence. “Pur” means “city” in Sanskrit.

6. Fukushima, Japan

Fukushima-jō was the name of a Japanese castle. It translates to “Lucky Island Castle.” Although the Meiji government demolished the fortification, the city around it still bears the name “Fukushima.” In 2011 Fukushima attracted global attention when a major earthquake and tsunami destroyed the backup power sources of a nuclear reactor located there. Along with the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine in 1986, Fukushima will go down in history as one of the worst nuclear accidents in history.

7. Fez, Morocco

The city of Fez has a short but surprisingly complicated name. “Fez” is the English spelling. In Arabic it is فاس Fās. Local residents, called “Fassis,” refer to it today as “Fes.” To confuse things further, Morocco was once under French rule, and they added an accent, spelling the name “Fès.” So what does the name actually mean? That’s also unclear. It’s similar to the Arabic word for “pickaxe.” Local legend says workers discovered a golden pickaxe during the city’s construction. Others say that the founders reversed the letters of an ancient city named “Sef” in the area to arrive at the name “Fes.”

8. Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Frankfurt is a city on the River Main in Germany. The city’s full name includes the name of its river to distinguish it from another city of the same name. “Frank” refers to the Frankish tribe that lived in the area and “furt” means “ford” in English: a place where the river is shallow enough to cross on foot). So the full name of the city means “the ford of the Franks on the Main”. About a dozen towns and cities in the U.S. use the same name but spell it “Frankfort.”

9. Favoriten, Austria

Favoriten, Austria bears the name of a baroque palace that was a hunting castle for Austrian nobility. However, today the facility is a middle and high school. “Favoriten Linie” was also the name for the customs houses at the southern edge of Vienna.

10. Fianarantsoa, Madagascar

In the Malagasy language spoken in Madagascar, Fianarantsoa means “good education.” Today the city is indeed a religious and educational center in the country. For example, It hosts a Lutheran Seminary, a university, several Protestant cathedrals, and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Fianarantsoa. The city is also the center of the wine industry of Madagascar.

11. Fasa, Iran

The original name of Fasa, Iran, was Pasā, which local people believe was the name of a legendary prince. However, linguists say it comes from an Old Persian word meaning “campground.” It probably referred to a nomadic camp that later became a town. After Arabic-speaking Muslims conquered the Persian empire, they wrote the name of the town as Fasā or Basā because their language does not have a letter for the “p” sound.” Over time this became the official name of the city.

12. Fredericton, Canada

When the United States won the Revolutionary War in 1783, loyalists fled to Canada to remain under British rule and escape reprisals in the newly independent colonies. Thereafter, many of them settled in New Brunswick, which the British separated from Nova Scotia into a separate colony in 1784. The French-named settlement of Pointe-Ste-Anne received a new name that honored Frederick, a son of King George III. Owing to its good defensive position, Fredericton became the capital of the colony.

Cities in the United States Starting with F

International Cities Starting with F

The photo featured at the top of this post is © Catarina Belova/Shutterstock.com