re: If you were to poll Americans on how many have heard of Louisiana cities, what would it be

New Orleans.
Baton Rouge.
Shreveport.

Thats probably about it.

Id be shocked if even 1% knew of Ruston LA.

New Orleans and BR sure. The others are way over estimated.

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Now do Bogalusa

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I wear a canoe racing shirt that has Bogalusa on it when I travel and it never fails that someone stops me with a Bogalusa connection story. happened in a Luanda, Angola airport once. Multiple times at Disney world.

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Alexandria & Monroe: 14%

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As someone who works remotely for a nationwide company and lives in Alexandria and routinely mentions where they are located on calls, let me tell you 14% is about 13% too high for Alexandria.

Absolutely nobody knows where this place is. I've met people from New Orleans who didn't know where Alexandria is.

Fun story, I once got ID'd for beer at a restaurant in Canada (which is weird since their drinking age is lower than ours, but anyway) and I still had a Louisiana ID....waitress thought it was fake because she didn't believe Louisiana was a real place.

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(reason why is there are several Lafayette's in the US

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When I lived in Wyoming, I met a girl from Lafayette, Colorado but she only said "Lafayette " when I asked where she was from. I got excited and asked what high school she went to and she told me "Centaurus". I looked at her stupid and she never talked to me again. I realized later on there was more than one Lafayette.

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You’d actually be surprised by the amount of out of state residents that know Morgan City due to O&G from several decades ago

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I was just talking to a guy in Colorado last week about how he worked out of Morgan City back in the day.

I've noticed people from lesser known cities tend to have a stock answer for their origins when traveling - "It's an hour north of X" or "it's as far as you can go without getting wet" or "it's where they make X".

One time I was bored on a flight so I tried to list four cities from every state. It's not as easy as you think when you get out of your geographical home region - think, New England, Great Plains, Southwest.

New Orleans: 100% absolutely, a world known city
Baton Rouge: 75% I might go a little higher LSU sports and learning state capitols in school
Shreveport: 65% About right, Elvis, favorite random location of TV shows and movies (Simpsons, SNL, Disney) and now 50 Cent
Lafayette: 38% Way too high
Lake Charles: 30% Way too high
Houma: 20% Extremely way too high
Alexandria & Monroe: 14% a smidge too high
Ruston: 12% I'd put it higher than both Alex and Monroe

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I’m sorry but this is wrong. People have heard of Houma and other small towns because of shows like Swamp People and Cajun Justice. Maybe not huge numbers but these small towns are know.

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Some sure but people who live in Maine think Manchester, Maine is well known from Maine Cabin Builders but most of the people who've even watched the show probably still don't remember the town's name.