There are 35 different cities and towns in the United States with the name "Franklin"; in this sense it is the most commonly used place name in the country. If you wished to visit every city and town named Franklin, what route would you take? This Demonstration shows you the shortest tour of the Franklins, and also the shortest tour that visits any possible collection of 15 or more U.S. towns and cities that share the same name. Just select a name from the popup menu and a tour that visits the places with that name will be displayed. (The names in this menu are sorted according to how many cities and towns bear that name, so Franklin is at the top.) Mouseover any town on the map to see what state it is in, and to show its population. There are sometimes two distinct "shortest" tours, according to two different ways in which distances can be measured. Euclidean distance refers to straight-line distances between points on the flat map itself. Geo distance treats the cities as points on the spherical globe, and measures distances along the surface of the globe. Neither measure takes roads, mountains, or water into account.