There is a town called Aurora in New York. And there is a town called East Aurora in New York.
East Aurora is a hundred miles west of Aurora.
Whose idea was that?
It’s the eastern part of one of the Erie County “southtowns” of Aurora, NY. A different town from the one in the Finger Lakes.
ETA: Ninja’ed while citing.
It makes a bit more sense if you read the two wiki articles.
East Aurora is a village within the town of Aurora in Erie county in far western NY state. And in fact is the eastern part of that town of Aurora. East Aurora, New York - Wikipedia.
The other Aurora you’re talking about is a village properly named “Aurora on Cayuga” in the town of Ledyard in Cayuga county in the central part of NY state. Aurora, Cayuga County, New York - Wikipedia
I don’t know enough about NY state naming conventions or laws to know if it’s normal to have the same name used at different levels of the county → town → village hierarchy.
But formally, there’s no duplication of names at the same level. Until people start using the short nicknamey “Aurora” form of “Aurora on Cayuga”. Then there’s ambiguity.
A quick rundown. New York, like most states, is divided up into counties. Counties in turn are divided up into townships. (I’m leaving New York City out of this, which has its own system.)
So wherever you are in New York State (outside of NYC) you’re in a county and in a town.
But there’s an additional division called a village. If you get a bunch of people living in one community, they can incorporate as a village. But unlike counties and townships, villages are not automatic. There are plenty of places in New York which are not inside any village. (There’s also cities but that’s not an issue here.)
So to swing back to the OP, Aurora is a village in the town of Ledyard in Cayuga County (Aurora-on-Cayuga is just a nickname, not an official name) and East Aurora is a village in the town of Aurora in Erie County.
Now to restate the OP in more precise legal terms:
There is a village called Aurora in New York. And there is a village called East Aurora in New York.
East Aurora is a hundred miles west of Aurora.
Whose idea was that?
I hope it’s clear this OP is intended mainly as a stab at humor. But I do think it’s strange that the people in East Aurora chose such an geographically inappropriate name when they incorporated their village in 1874. Aurora was incorporated as a village in 1837 and I assume somebody in East Aurora must have been aware of its existence. They could have avoided being the butt of future jokes about not knowing how to use a compass by naming their town West Aurora. I would have also accepted Aurora 2: Electric Boogaloo.
Thanks. And yes, knowing where you live I assumed you were playing this for humor.
Towns as all-encompassing subdivisions of counties seem to be a mostly NY-specific notion. Or at least Northeast specific.
Much of the rest of the US makes do with counties as the lowest all-encompassing subdivision. Municipalities each carve their hunk out of the containing county piecemeal, leaving so-called unincorporated county land in between them. Often municipalities grow to abut one another, slowly absorbing most or even all the unincorporated territory in their county. But even today even heavily populated counties often have little enclaves of unincorporated county land.
Last of all municipalities may have words like town or village or city in their name, but those words don’t connote any particular legal status; they’re all equivalent.
I’m trying to sort out the sequence of events for this Aurora conundrum.
As to the towns, the town of Aurora came first, in 1818. The town of Ledyard came next in 1823.
But the village of East Aurora was founded (whatever that means) in 1804, before the enclosing town of Aurora existed, and was incorporated (made official I assume) in 1874, much later.
And the village of Aurora (on cayuga) was named “Aurora” in 1795, and incorporated in 1837. So it was named first, but incorporated after the other Aurora (the town) was officially in existence. That’s probably the mistake that should have been prevented right then.
The interleaving of these events is a made to order gridlock: each flavor of Aurora (all three) can claim it was there first somehow and the others ought not be permitted to use the same name or a near derivative thereof.
I say the state legislature should now require all 3 to change their names to something not including the word Aurora and having no words in common with the others. Call it the Gordian knot solution. Or maybe the King Solomon solution.
Whack! Problem solved. 
New York is dotted with duplicate names. Most people know the City of Rochester, but a tiny fraction know about the Town of Rochester.
Basically, two places on the same level - city, town, village, hamlet - can’t share the same name, but two places on different levels can.
I happen to live a 5 minute walk from the Jacksonville post office, yet my mailing address is Trumansburg, even though all are inside of Ulysses. NY towns are seriously screwed up.
In Connecticut (which granted, is a pretty small state) there is no unincorporated land in the state. The state is divided up into counties, and further subdivided into towns (analogous to townships).
But although there are still counties, in 1960 the state got rid of all county government, so there are only municipal governments below the state level (169 of them).
Some municipalities are cities, and the city is typically coterminous with the town and they merge together completely.
But not always. The City of Groton, for example, is smaller in land area than the surrounding Town of Groton. And there are two different governments. (The town is like a mini-county of more rural land surrounding the city.) It was very strange to me when I first moved here to learn that the City of Groton was physically smaller than the surrounding Town of Groton.
Connecticut also has villages, but I don’t think they have any legal significance. They are recognized by the post office and as a census-designated place, but that’s about it. They don’t have any government of their own.
It’s not the duplication of names which I found funny. It’s the fact that when the duplication of village names arose, the westernmost village decided to distinguish itself by naming appending East to its name.
To put it in local perspective, it would be like Webster deciding to name itself West Rochester.
Greenport is both a town on the Hudson River in Columbia County, NY and a village on the North Fork of Long Island.
See below.
I got the joke. But I was responding to @LSLGuy’s post immediately above mine and his comment that the “mistake” should have been corrected at the time of incorporation. Legally, there was no “mistake” and nothing to correct. Just a weird fact about New York law.
ETA. That was directed to @Little_Nemo before Chuck’s post appeared.
Ohio also has townships, and any land that’s not part of a municipality is part of a township. I don’t think that the townships still exist where municipalities are, but if they do, they’re so vestigial that even the locals don’t know of them.
We don’t have any distinctions between different sizes of municipality. If a town of 300 people decides to incorporate, that’s legally the same as Cleveland, Columbus, or Cincinnatti.
I’ve seen similar in Texas. You’ll see signs announcing some community is a city, even though it only has a population of around two hundred people.
They do by default, but they cease to exist if the township becomes 100% incorporated (as happened in most of Cuyahoga County) and they can also be abolished by the municipality except in recently-annexed areas. (Technically the city does that by creating a new township, and because that township is 100% incorporated it has no government.)
It’s confusing even for local officials. My city discovered 30+ years of errors a few years ago, with housing developments that had never been formally removed from the township, but had never paid township taxes or been allowed to vote on those taxes. I think all parties just agreed to redraw the lines ASAP and forget about it.
The small ones have more privileges AFAIK. Villages (under 5,000) get snow-plowing services from ODOT on state routes that enter the village limits, but cities have to do it themselves except on Interstates. I think they can also choose not to allow their employees to unionize.
Trumansburg!!?? I used to live in Ovid early 80s. We’d go to Trumansburg to a Mexican restaurant. Bicycle and dog friendly. Probably long gone.
There’s a similar situation to the OP here in Oregon. In central Oregon, there’s the city of Bend. It’s the largest city east of the Cascades. A couple hundred miles (and two major mountain ranges) away along the Pacific coast is North Bend. It’s actually further south than Bend. I believe both names are descriptive in that they are on bends in rivers.
Wisconsin is like New York (sort of — see below). No unincorporated “just county” land.
In Wisconsin, a town is an unincorporated jurisdiction within a county. All residents of Wisconsin who do not live in a city or village live in a town.
The towns are technically “unincorporated” because their minimum government is pretty minimal, but it does exist — to build and maintain roads, and have a fire department, at least. So, less authority than a New York town (which has “home rule”).
As for the OP:
There may also be more than one town in the state (although not within the same county) with the same name. For example, there are towns named Albion in Dane County, Jackson County, and Trempealeau County.
Both quotes from Wikipedia.
Yep. In Ohio, there are two levels of incorporated municipalities: village and city. It’s based on the population. Townships are the unincorporated parts of a county. Every part of Ohio is in a county, and within that county, always unincorporated as a township or incorporated into a village or city. I believe it’s possible for city to become a village with loss of population, and for a village or city to disincorporate.
(I grew up in a village of 1500 people in Ohio.)