There’s North Dakota and South Dakota, but no East Dakota or West Dakota or just plain Dakota.
Are there any groups of related nearby places that consist of a North X, East X, South X, and West X?
On New York’s Long Island, there are the Hamptons, which consist of the towns of East Hampton and Southampton, the latter of which contains the hamlets of Northampton and Westhampton. Sorta what I’m looking for, and possibly the best example.
But the ideal example would have four equivalent components, e.g., all towns, not hamlets within one of the other towns. Even better would be a central X surrounded by NX, EX, SX, and WX.
Obviously, unrelated distant places, like Southampton, UK, and Northampton, MA, don’t count for the purpose of this OP.
In the Chicago metropolitan area, there are cities named North Chicago, West Chicago, and East Chicago. There is not an independent town named South Chicago, but there is a community area – an officially-defined and officially-named subdivision of the City of Chicago – named South Chicago.
Interestingly, none of the three “[direction] Chicago” cities directly border on the City of Chicago.
Massachusetts has Northborough, Southborough, Westborough, and Marlborough. Originally it was all Marlborough, but the N/S/W split off 250-300 years ago. You’ve got to rotate your compass a bit to get them to actually lineup in the named directions though.
I’m not sure if Sacramento quite makes the cut:
There is an incorporated city called West Sacramento.
There used to be an incorporated city called North Sacramento, but it was disincorporated and annexed by Sacramento proper back in the 1960s. East Sacramento is not a separate city, but it is the official name of a neighborhood within the city.
There are places on Google Maps labeled Southeastern Sacramento and Southwestern Sacramento, but I don’t think those are official designations.
And if you look at them on a map, Southborough is where you’d expect Eastborough (if there were one) should be, and Westborough is where Southborough should be.
West Acton
They all formed and were named for RR stations. When I lived there, North Acton didn’t really have much going on but that has changed over the years.
Some boring but incredibly typical New England history. Originally, it was all Marlborough. In 1717 they split the western half of Marlborough into Westborough, (which comprised what is now Westborough and Northborough). 10 years later, they split the southern half of the remaining Marlborough into Southborough. 50ish years after that, they split the northern half of Westborough into Northborough. So if you look at that timeline, the current locations/names make somewhat more sense.
