Followed closely by “tri-county region”. There’s also lots of “twin cities”, “tri cities”, etc.
Don’t know, but I frequently click on newpaper/TV/radio articles and have no idea what city it’s from. Not even that it’s a tri-state region. Or they’ll give the city name but no clue as to which state.
Ah, I had heard of that but for some reason didn’t think it was a CofC type region. I’ve never lived there, but I had the impression it included Boise but didn’t include any of Oregon
I suppose I’d better explain what I mean by CofC regions. I’ll use the Inland Empire around Spokane as an example. It’s basically the area that the Spokane newspapers are distributed in. And where Spokane TV stations can be received, either through repeaters or cable. The boundaries are indistinct, but do not correspond to any political boundaries, even international ones (at its greatest extent, the Inland Empire includes a small part of British Columbia. Also part of Montana.) OK, so the Spokane media can claim they advertise in this large region and charge advertisers more for that. The name is mainly to give a sense of community to it, although I’m sure that sense becomes less pronounced the further from Spokane you get. Anyway, the idea was to get people in that region to look to Spokane for services and goods not immediately available, rather than some other city.
Now this is the way it was when I last lived in Spokane, but that was decades ago. I’m sure the whole concept has been heavily degraded by the internet. People don’t need to get their news from Spokane anymore and Amazon makes lots of trips to that city unnecessary.
Does the Bedford Auto Mile, near Cleveland, count? “Bedford” is the name of a municipality, but the “Auto Mile” is just a stretch of road that has a lot of car dealerships along it. A commercial for any of those dealerships might say “Look for us on the Bedford Auto Mile”, and everyone looking to buy a car knows where that is.
I’m not sure if it meets your definition of artificial, but Northeastern Minnesota (the vicinity of Duluth and points north and east) is called “Arrowhead Country” or “The Arrowhead Region.” The name derives from a 1924 contest sponsored by the regional chamber of commerce. The triangular shape bounded by Canada and Lake Superior does resemble an arrowhead. The Wikipedia page.
A major point of this thread is that it’s confusing, to the point that someone can’t just say “Tri-State Area”. There are dozens of them… Wikipedia mentions sixteen, with PA/NJ/DE first.
Here’s post 7, which echoes my frustration:
Side note: I went to college in the middle of nowhere, and a common discussion was “How do I explain when someone asks where I go to school?” One wag suggested replying with “Oh, outside the twin cities…” and if they pursue the subject, “You know, Osseo-Pittsford!”
Salients (sections of states that protrude from the main body) are not what I was looking for in this thread. Rather I’m interested in regions that ignore political boundaries. There are, btw, seven panhandles in the US, plus at least one bootheel. I haven’t been able to find any other salients with special names, although there are some that don’t seem to be named.
I’ll submit Packerland for the list. Its definition is nebulous, at best – while Green Bay (and, by extension, the entire Green Bay area) is undeniably the seat of Packerland, and it’s in Green Bay where the term is most frequently used, it’s not at all clear how much of the rest of Wisconsin (or any other state) is part of Packerland.
It doesn’t have a fancy name, but RenoTahoe fits the bill. It crosses the state borders (including the brilliantly named Stateline, NV and South Lake Tahoe, CA), and even crosses a mountain range (the Carson Range).
A couple others that came to mind as I skimmed back through the thread:
The Research Triangle (or just “The Triangle”): an area of North Carolina. It sounds like the term originally was used specifically in reference to the three research universities in the area (North Carolina State, North Carolina - Chapel Hill, and Duke), but after the formation of “Research Triangle Park” in the 1950s, it’s come to be a general reference to the region.
The Treasure Coast: a region of the east coast of Florida, roughly including Martin, St. Lucie, and Indian River Counties (and maybe Palm Beach County, as well). The term came into being in the 1960s, and originally referred to the discovery of Spanish shipwrecks offshore in the area; it eventually became a popular term to refer to (and contrast) the area north of the “Gold Coast” area (around Miami). The popular/common definition of which areas are (and aren’t) part of the Treasure Coast has shifted over time.
In regards to Tri-State area, from up in the Northwest that default referred to NY/NJ/CT (maybe because I watched a lot of WOR on cable as a kid). IL/IN/WI, from my memories watching WGN, was always referred to as “Chicagoland”. On the few cases I heard of the Philly area, as mentioned above, it was the Delaware Valley. Never even heard of the other ones.
Ecotopia (the coastal redwood region) somewhat encompassing the State of Jefferson (NorCal and SoOre). West Coast of Arizona (Colorado River). Gold Rush country (many counties along state route 49). Central America (many nations issue C.A. license plates). New York City (five distinct counties). Finger Lakes (multi-county area). Middle East.
