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If a city conforms to a special rule, I call it a Bird city™.
Each city in the World can be tested. This is not a definitive list of Bird cities™.

Bird cities™ Not Bird cities™
Paris - France Bergamo - Italy
Osaka - Japan Munich - Germany
New York - United States of America San Francisco - United States of America
Bogota - Colombia Seville - Spain
Marrakesh - Morocco Liverpool - England
Oxford - England Boston - United States of America
Savannakhet - Laos Shanghai - China
Doha - Qatar Lyon - France
Mykonos - Greece Venice - Italy

Find the rule which determines whether or not a city is called a Bird City™.

Although it is a little inspired by the What is a Word™/Phrase™ series started by JLee, it is not exactly in the same spirit. In particular, there is no word-property tag.

21st of February, creating first hint

I am planning to add a first hint which will double the number of examples. Please ask for cities you want me to tell whether they are Bird cities or not in comments and when the number of asked cities will reach 18, the first hint will be published.

First Hint 1 in progress

Note: I can't make my markdown table hint into spoiler, can you help please :D ?

Bird cities™ Not Bird cities™
Jakarta - Indonesia
@ophact - 21st of February		 East Grestin - Russia
@notalentgeek 22nd of February
Quebec City - Canada
@Auribouros - 21s of February		 Lutetia - Roman Empire
@xyldke - 22nd of February
Cambridge - England and UK
@quarague 21st of February		 Bremen - Germany
@xyldke - 25th of February
Amsterdam - Netherlands
@notalengeek 22nd of February		 Mylkolayiv - Ukraine
23rd of February
Gotham City - USA
@notalengeek 22nd of February		 Lviv - Ukraine
23rd of February
East and West Berlin - Germany - Cold War
@Auribouros 24th of February		 Odessa- Ukraine
23rd of February
Glasgow - Scotland
@xyldke - 25th of February
Brooklyn - USA - 1897
@xyldke - 25th of February
New York City - USA - 1897
@xyldke - 25th of February
Roma - Italia
@xyldke - 1st of March
Stormwind - World of Warcraft
@Auribouros - 21st of June

In the next table, I do not have enough knowledge to determine whether it is a Bird city™ or not.

To be discovered later Member and asking date
East Grestin - Arstotzka @notalentgeek 22nd of February

Note: I was asked several cities that do not exist anymore. Please note that although getting interested to pass Bird Cities is possible, there is no history tag in this puzzle :)

Second Hint 21st of June

A Bird city™ may be called a Crow Flies city™

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  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Is Jakarta, Indonesia a bird city? $\endgroup$
    – ophact
    Feb 21, 2022 at 12:17
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Is Quebec City a Bird city ? $\endgroup$
    – Auribouros
    Feb 21, 2022 at 13:21
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Is Cambridge, United Kingdom a bird city? If that is not too spoilery, does the answer for Cambridge, England differ? $\endgroup$
    – quarague
    Feb 21, 2022 at 16:55
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ Dumb question, is 'Atalanta' correctly spelled? English language Wikipedia doesn't seem to have a city of that name in Italy. $\endgroup$
    – quarague
    Feb 21, 2022 at 17:54
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ How about "Gotham City - United States of America" and "East Grestin - Arstotzka"? $\endgroup$
    – notalentgeek
    Feb 22, 2022 at 5:23

1 Answer 1

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After months of going back and forth on this post, I think I have finally solved it.

A Bird City™ is:

A city in which if you take any two points, the geodesic between those two points will never leave the boundaries of the city. It is called a "Bird" city because the geodesic can also be known as the crow flies, the shortest distance between two geographical points.

Reasoning:

I knew it was something about the distance but it didn't click immediately, looking at the shape of the non-Bird cities, I noticed their often awkward shape, and after a quick search of distance between two geographical points, it all came together.

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  • $\begingroup$ I don't think Glasgow fits this pattern (look at the neighbourhoods of Castlemilk and Tollcross) $\endgroup$
    – xyldke
    Jan 9 at 12:32

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