Alternating Consonants and Vowels:
Some countries have names in which consonants and vowels alternate -- consider Canada and Panama. What is the longest such name?
Thanks to Warren Usui for passing this along.
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In Arabic, it's trickier because they don't write in some of their vowels, but both definite articles are followed by consonants ('ayn begins 'amirat, and miim begins mutahida).
Of course, Arabic has very few words that begin with vowels (and depending on how you count hamza, it may have none).
Paramaribo?
If we count Y as a vowel I have Paramaribo and Tananarive beat, though it's a bit of a cheat.
Tell us, please, whether it's a cheat or not. Y counts as a vowel if it's used as a vowel, i.e., pronounced as, e.g., a short i or a long e. The y in Kelly is a vowel. The y in yellow is a consonant.
Californian:
Nice job with Oconomowoc. Wish I'd though of it myself.
Kakamigahara, Japan (which should get extra points because Japan also alternates)
Zacatecolaca, El Salvador, both 12 letters.
If more than one word is allowed:
Basavana Bagevadi, India, 16 letters.
Kakamigahara, Japan (which should get extra points because Japan also alternates)
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You can do better than Kakamigahara if you include the towns which were recently consolidated into its municipality.
Kakamigaharasoharakakizawa (28 letters) is the best I can do staring at the list. Their postal code is 504-0825.
I'd be remiss if I didn't say that some would consider both Kakamigahara and Kakamigaharasoharakakizawa cheating since they exclude some explanatory Japanese (Kakamigahara *City*, Soharakakizawa *Town*, -shi and -chou respectively). However, some Japanese people would read the name without them.
Sorry for indulging in Gifu Prefecture geographic trivia... I work for the prefectural government. Might tell the tourist board to list this as another reason for people to come visit Gifu :)
I didn't get a chance to do as much searching as I wanted but my best find was Colorado City Colorado. 12 + 8, but "city" is a bit of a cheat.