When Americans use the term 'world famous' what exactly does this mean?

I’m reading a great book called ‘Fish!’ and it mentions the world famous ‘Pike Place Fish Market’. I’ve never heard of it and am wondering why this is so. I checked the Wikipedia article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pike_Place_Fish_Market

and was surprised that the language list on the left side is empty. If you go to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_gate_bridge

for example, you will get links to articles in العربية, Беларуская, Bosanski, Български, Česky, Cymraeg, Dansk, Deutsch, Espagnol, Esperanto, Euskara, فارسی, Føroyskt, Français, Frysk, Galego, 한국어, Հայերեն, हिन्दी, Hrvatski, Bahasa Indonesia, Íslenska, Italiano, עברית, ქართული, Kernowek, Kiswahili, Latviešu, Lietuvių, Magyar, Македонски, मराठी, Bahasa Melayu, Nederlands, 本語, ‪Norsk, پنجابی, Papiamentu, Polski, Português, Română, Русский, Shqip, Slovenčina, Српски, Srpski, Srpskohrvatski, Suomi, Svenska, தமிழ், తెలుగు, ไทย, Türkçe, Українська, Tiếng Việt and 中文.

So, what’s going on here?

What criteria can we use to label something as being “world famous”?

How do Americans interpret the term?