NYC is pretty straightforward when it comes to its neighborhood and street names–well, unless you’re a tourist and don’t know how to pronounce “Houston” or “Greenwich”–but our neighborhoods have nothing on this place!
The longest named place in the US is a lake located in Massachusetts near the Connecticut border–about 3.5 hours from NYC–and it’s also the third longest named place in the entire world!
Located in Webster, Massachusetts the lake offers visitors a serene escape to relax, swim, boat, kayak, and more. Though we have to warn you it may take you a few minutes to figure out how to get there, strictly because we truly can’t imagine anyone successfully spelling it correctly when typing it into maps.
Coming in at 45 letters long the name of the lake is…Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg.
And no, we’re not kidding, though we are happy to inform you that today the lake is mostly just referred to as Lake Webster.
A bit about the lake’s history: the name is Loup, an Algonquian language, and anthropologist Ives Goddard says it first appeared on maps in 1831 with the name Chargoggagoggmanchoggagogg Pond. This name, however, wasn’t exactly accurate.
The Times Atlas of the World, which holds some of the earliest records of the lake, cites that it was actually first known as Chabunagungamaug Pond (with slight spelling variations), though Goddard says that when a cartographer first put the lake on the map time they spelt the original name wrong and confused it for a pond in the same area, Manchaug Pond.
Thus we arrived at Chargoggagoggmanchoggagogg Pond.
Its original name, however, is quite fitting. Chabunagungamaug means “lake divided by islands,” which is geographically accurate. Though once settlers began using the lake for fishing and meeting, the name expanded to Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg, meaning “English knifemen and Nipmuck Indians at the boundary or neutral fishing place.”
But don’t let the name pronunciation stop you from hopping on a road trip to check it out–with its endless greenery, lapping shorelines, and cozy cottages the New England spot makes for the perfect weekend getaway and serves as a great recluse from the craziness of NYC.
Hey, you may even find yourself a Webster resident willing to rattle off the correct pronunciation of the name for you!