Usability issue 1400 item drop down or autocomplete field?

I'm setting up a classified ads site. I'm gonna have 13 provinces and in each province I'll have several major cities/locations as terms (required field). Now the other option I'll have is exact city field (optional) so a user can enter the exact city they live in if they want to. This field will also be exposed in views to filter out the ads by.

Now problem is that when adding a node, the exact city field for certain node types will contain up to 1400 items (towns/cities) which could take some time for a user to scroll through. Not a big deal for me but I'm not the end user.

The other option I have is turning the field into an auto complete field but I'm thinking it might not be as usable as a huge drop-down especially if JS is turned off.

So you as a user would you prefer to scroll through a big list or type in a word/letter and be presented with the options?

Thanks