One day, a woman from Dull visited Boring on vacation, and inspired by the sense of connection, asked the town councils if they felt like spicing things up.
Now Dull, in Scotland, is officially a sister city of Boring, Oregon, and mastermind of the project Elizabeth Leighton says it has made Dull a more lively place to live. With a population of just 85, Dull jumped at the idea which Elizabeth says has brought a ‘flash of excitement’ to the tiny village ten years on.
Dull has seen a surge in visitor numbers since 2012 and even had tourists from Boring come to celebrate the match. “I was going through Boring and saw the sign [and sent] my friend who was living in Dull a message saying, ‘isn’t this amazing, I’m in Boring and you are in Dull,’” said Leighton.
“It really increased the number of visitors, and you can see people stopping to take selfies with the road sign. There have been exchanges, with people from Boring coming here for celebrations.” That's good news for Dull as its main businesses are guest lodges and chalets, aimed at the tourism market, as well as Highland Safaris.
Boring was named after William H Boring, an early resident of the area and former Union soldier in the American Civil War, and has a population of nearly 8,000.
Not wanting to be overlooked in the assembly of monotony, Bland in Australia decided to jump on the bandwagon, becoming the third member in the ‘trinity of tedium’ in 2017.
Spanning three continents, the three unfortunately named communities are now united in monotony.
The word "river" in Scandinavian is "Å," and both Norway and Sweden have villages with this as their name. Sweden also has a village named Ö, which means "island." France has a village called Y. More Weird and Wonderful Facts...