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Italian: "in culo al mondo"/"in culo ai lupi" (in the butt of the world/in the butt of wolves)

In South Africa, we say "halfpad tussen Pofadder en Putsonderwater"

Which translates to halfway between Pufadder (named after the snake) and well-without-water town.

Both are real places, with the stereotypical names that already play on the fact that there is very little going on there.

The open stretch between the two with no roads, no farms, no railways.

These days, it does not work in reality as their built the Square Kilometer Array there, as it was probably the quietest place (radio signal wise) in the world where you could build radio telescopes.

In Lithuanian we have these:

• Dievo užmirštame kampelyje - In the little corner God forgot about
• Giliame užkampyje - Somewhere deep, behind the corner
• Pasaulio pakrašty - At the end of the the world

In America we also have "fuck-ass nowhere," "bumble fuck," and "bum fuck." And that's before you get creative and start making shit up.

German also has a few other interesting ones that refer to actually real places.

• Buxtehude (small town near Hamburg)
• Timbuktu (ancient town in the Sahara)
• Pampa (grassland in agentinia)

The last one makes historical sence since many Germans migrated to that region of south America in the 1800, and then more Germans got replaced in the soviet union and moved there and then many Nazis fled there after the surrender. So its just a synonym for a place very far away. Not sure where the rest come from

Since there's surprisingly no Russian here yet, here are a few I know (some are probably regional):

• Где раки зимуют [Gde raki zimuyut] - "where crayfish spend their winter"
• У чёрта на куличиках [U chyorta na kulichikah] - "on the devil's little Easter breads" (there's also a version "on the devil's horns")
• За тридевять земель [Za tridevyat zemel] - "beyond threenine (i.e. 27) lands" feels somewhat fairytale/archaic, haven't heard anyone use it unironically
• В жопе мира [V zhope mira] - "in the ass of the world"
• Зажопье [Zazhopye] - a made up placename roughly meaning "beyond ass", evocative of many toponyms which start with the same prefix (e.g. Замосковоречье [Zamoskvorechye] - "beyond river Moscow")
• Мухосранск [Mukhosransk] - made-up town name, roughly translatable as "where flies shit"
• Ухрюпинск [Ukhryupinsk] - corrupted name of the town of Uryupinsk, probably on account of it being far away from my birthplace
• Подзатворожинск [Podzatvorozhinsk] - made-up town name, roughly "[place which] started to turn into cottage cheese" or "under the [place] beyond cottage cheese" or some combination of the two

But honestly the most likely phrase I'd use in an informal context is a boring чёрт знает где [chyort znayet gde] - "devil knows where"

In New Zealand we say 'in Waikikamukau' (pronounced "Why kick a moo cow") because it's juuuuust enough like actual place names here that people don't instantly pick up on the alternate meaning.

I guess closest turkish version I ever seen used is "ebenin götünde," which translates to "in your midwife's butt."

people from stockholm call everything that's outside of the city spenaten, "the spinach".

In Québec we also use au milieu de nulle part. But abetter option is Saint-Glin-glin des meuh-meuh. Saint-ding-dong on the moo-moo.

In Polish we've got "gdzie psy dupami mi szczekają" or where dogs bark with their assess.

In my hometown we usually say "a Puttemburgo" (literally "Whoreburg") or "in culo ai lupi" ("up the wolves' arsehole") or "a Tron di Dio" ("on God's throne").

We have a few in Spanish, one of my favourites is "Donde Cristo perdió el mechero": Where Christ lost his lighter.

Meanwhile in Chile: "A la conchade su madre" (Literally: "Towards your mother's c**t")

That’s literally the first time I heard that hungarian version, that’s not what we use, we use “az isten háta mögött” which is “behind gods back” to refer to places in bumfuck nowhere

In Romanian it's „unde și-a înțărcat dracul copiii” which means "where the Devil weaned his children".

American English has “Buttfuck, Idaho”, possibly substituting more polite names, and/or other equally sparsely populated states. If it’s abroad, it becomes Buttfuckistan or some equivalent.

Not sure about a British equivalent, but I’ve seen “Invernowhere” used in a Scottish context (there’s probably a swearier version this was bowdlerised from), and Dylan Thomas named an imaginary Welsh town Llareggub (read it backwards).

Anyone remember "BFE"?

As in,
"Where are you?"
"I'm in the middle of BFE."

In Hebrew, the closest we have is טיזינבי (tizinabi), which doesn't mean anything in Hebrew but comes from Arabic طيز ٱلنَّبِي where it apparently means "the prophet's butt". TIL.

In Scotland, we say 'middleae fucking naewhere' or 'Largs'.

In belgian french, we have "Outsiplou-les-Bains-de-Pieds". Made up town name that both sounds funny and too long to actually exist, but the Outsiplou part kind of means "listen if it's raining" in walloon. And "Perpète-les-Oies". Which you could translate to "Far-away Geese", which is plain gibberish but sounds like a lot of real places in France. There's plently of variations but they mostly try to invent a name that sounds like a stereotypical countryside village name.

In French: trou du cul du monde, or World's asshole.

A Levant arabic way of saying it is "في طيز العقرب" which literally means "in the scorpions ass"

In Spain we have "en el quinto pino": in the fifth pine, and "estoy a tomar por saco", which badly translates to "to go get fucked in a bag".

I find it funny that the title is "cultural differences", but the content is actually showing how all these cultures needed someway to describe being in the middle of nowhere.

In Québec, we say "Saint Clin-Clin De meuh-meuh"; "Saint", because a lot of towns here are named after a Saint, "Clin-Clin" because of another expression "ti-clin" which means some random person, so "Clin-Clin" means a random Saint, and "des meuh-meuh" because a lot of towns here have some kind of suffix like "des Saults", or "de Brandon", so "des meuh-meuh" (like moo-moo) is the sound a cow makes, and I guess it sounds rural or something. Also, when we talk about somewhere very far away, we say "au diable vert" "at the green devil"; not sure about the origin of this expression, though.

Icelandic has "lengst úti í rassgati" which means as far as you can go to an asshole. There's also the leas common "í langtíburtistan" which is in Far-away-istan

This may be the first post I've ever come across where I was there was an "Upvote All Comments" button...

These could all be made up for all I know, but they are all very entertaining! 😄

"Buttfuck, Egypt" is my favorite version of this expression.

UK does have the idiom "bumfuck, nowhere" a fictional town in the fictional county of nowhere

In British English there's:

• arse-end of nowhere
• the sticks
• back of beyond

and probably more

In Greek it is: στου διαόλου τη μάνα, which means "at the Devil's mom"