I grew up around Clark Air Base and Subic Naval Base (both in the Philippines), and I guess your bases are the closest things I could think of to an “Americatown.”
I distinctly remember stores in those areas accepting USD as payment and the McDonald’s in those places having US menus instead of the Philippine one.
These places also resembled small towns in the US.
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Yep Military bases are basically these
The closest thing I can think of are a few expat communities in Latin America.
On the military base I’m at they only accept USD and we have some American fast food places you don’t find off base. The towns outside them are pretty small and have a large population of Americans, but still mostly British people. They don’t have any separate menus at restaurants and only accept British Pounds.
Not quite what you’re asking but apparently 8% of the population of the Scottish town of St Andrews are American students, which is not insubstantial.
Everywhere in Toronto or Calgary, despite their claims that they’re not American.
If you were to be dropped in the middle of downtown Toronto and not told where you were, you would be pretty certain you were somewheres in America.
Not in the sense you’re thinking.
That sort of ethnic exclave is a result of mass emigration from a country with less opportunity to a country with more opportunity.
Those circumstances have never arisen for America.
All US military bases abroad basically are, but a actual interesting answer is [Johnson Town, Japan](https://japantoday.com/category/features/travel/Johnson-Town-Japan%27s-own-little-slice-of-1950s-America)
In addition to the answers about military bases, there are also “Americatowns” in a lot of hub cities (Dakar, Nairobi, etc) that are temporary stopping points for the Americans stopping over for a few days.
The visitors might just be looking for a familiar meal and a conversation in English before they head off to their final destination, usually some international aid, work conference, or similar.
But entrepreneurs have realized there’s a lot of money providing ” little slice of home” in the form of familiar grocery stores, familiar restaurants, etc. to those visitors.
Those entrepreneurs tend to cluster near each other and create something that’s a little bit like “typical American suburban life,” whatever that is.
Besides military bases and their surroundings, no. Not a whole lot of Americans moving en masse to other countries relatively speaking. There are more foreign born people living here than the the entire population of most other countries.
The closest I can think of is Amerikamura in Osaka.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerikamura
Osaka has [Amerikamura](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerikamura)
Any US military base overseas is the closest thing that you’ll find to something like a Chinatown.
You also go to places like any major Canadian city, much of the vacation zones in Mexico, and major world cities like London, Paris, Tokyo, etc… there will be a large amount of Americans living there, especially in our two neighbors of Canada and Mexico.
I studied at the university of St Andrews in Scotland. St Andrews is a small town – except over the summer, over one third of the population of the town either studies at or works for the University. Of the student population, 20% are from the United States. So many Americans. They definitely contribute to the general atmosphere of the town. I’d say it’s a bit of an Americatown!
I’d be surprised if there were many because China (just for example, there’s also little Italy Korea town and so forth) are all older countries with a significant population that immigrated to the US when a lot of our cities were developing. Therefore they could develop some of the city around the culture they came from. Less US emigration to foreign countries and likely not at a time where their city was developing in a way they could carve out their own little section
Brazil has whole towns that are descendants of CSA supporters fleeing after the war. They still maintain their culture
San Miguel de Allende in Mexico
A couple of Good Ole Confederates came to Brazil in the late nineteenth century and founded two cities, Americana and Santa Bárbara D’Oeste in São Paulo State, Brazil.
These cities are actually conurbated today, and have about half a million people together.
With that said, evidence of American presence today is very little. The thing is that even though there are 9 million US expats worldwide, I know of no place (excluding military bases) where their presence is strong enough to constitute a visible permanent colony, as we see with the Irish, Italians, Greeks, Jews, in America.
The problem is historically when a bunch of American expats moved somewhere else they usually decided that their new home should now also be part of the US.
See: Texas, California, Hawaii, etc.
Why did my mind immediately go to “Wee London” from Arrested Development?
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MISTER EFF!
There’s one in Saõ Paolo, Brazil. Although it was formed by former confederate soldiers after the Civil War.
Itaewon in Seoul, but the military base nearby was closed, so I don’t know if it’s still like that
There’s an area in Okinawa literally called American Village, but It’s just a tourist trap for US service members. They do have some pretty cool Americana in some of the shops, though.
https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e7127.html
Literally almost anywhere in Canada
South Kensington.
There’s one in [Tokyo](https://youtu.be/F6MaBjL1cck)
I’m an American, but every stupid McDonald’s.
Countries with lots of oil have American ethnic enclaves
Americana, São Paulo state, Brazil. The name says it all.
Parts of Dhahran are or were American enclaves.
There was a shopping mall in Beijing that was kinda like that. Or was an expatville. This was a long time ago but I remember that it had a shop that sold milk. Like chocolate milk or strawberry milk or raspberry milk. It was like a coffee shop. And then you could get just milk and I can’t remember for the life of me what they called it but it was like milk regular, like coffee regular. And I had been in China so long at that point that I loved it. All Midwestern me wanted was some fresh dairy. That area also had a food shop with real cheese and there I bought a small block of cheddar for $40.
I worked for a supermajor oil company. Supermajors have assets in their home country, as well as internationally, including in some pretty geopolitically unstable countries. We have compounds in those unstable nations, so if you get rotated overseas, you live on the compound. I think some scenes from the movie Syriana portray one of these compounds? Could be wrong.
That compound is basically like a little American town in a foreign country. It’s walled, it’s got security, and you are likely never going outside it’s walls except for R&R trips home, depending on the danger level. Even sometimes driving to the compound from the airport in some countries is risky because you might be targeted for kidnapping. You can expect a 3 bd, 2ba house with laundry and tap water that you can drink right from the tap. Many have their own U.S. based school that often teaches up to grade 8. There will be a golf course, a pool, tennis courts, a bowling alley, stores. There is a clinic that’s almost equivalent to a small town hospital. You can even do PT there and have surgery. There will be a post office, fire station, gas station, a bank, etc. They will fly in American things. There are bbqs. If the office isn’t located inside the walls of the compound, then you might be taking an armored car to the office each day. I’ve never rotated, but the people I know who have said it was fucking weird (but also that they made a ridiculous amount of money – nobody really wants to live like this in a Stepford Wife like situation – so they pay you a LOT to move there).
Aramco Compound in Saudi Arabia is a Little USA or AmericaTown from what I’ve heard. Suburban urban planning, McMansion style homes, golf courses & movie theaters…
http://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170915134044-christmas-lights-at-lava-circle.jpg
https://dhow.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Saudi-Aramco-remains-a-home-away-from-home-for-many-Americans.jpg
https://www.arabnews.com/sites/default/files/main-image/2018/05/14/1188576-16852390.jpg
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1302646/business-economy