Fort Worth is “Cowtown” and “Where the West Begins”. Dallas is usually referred to as “Big D” or “Where the East Peters Out” 
. The metro area that includes both cities and the suburbs is called “The Metroplex”.
The general area in and around Lexington, Ky is the Bluegrass. Lexington calls itself the Horse Capital of the U.S. (For now anyway.)
And it means, of course, “foot of the mountain”, (from the French)…
Some of the places I’ve spent some time besides “The Coastal Empire” (See Savnnah above):
Albany, Ga.,-though hardly a “metro” area- “SOWEGA” (SOuthWEst GA)
Wilmington, NC to Myrtle Beach, SC-“Southeast North Carolina-Northeast South Carolina”, the former formerly called “SENCLAND”.
The Dayton, Ohio area is called the Miami Valley, though that is often used to describe an area much larger than the immediate metropolitan area.
Besides the city nicknames already mentioned for Cincinnati, I think Greater Cincinnati (or maybe Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky) is used for the region.
Wait, isn’t DC “the District”? I have never lived there, I just remember it being used once or twice.
Greensboro can be called “the 'borro”, but that is mostly a youth-slang thing. Not to be confused with a burro, of course. For that matter, many cities use a contracted name as a nick, like The Burgh.
Charleston is The Holy City, and the general surrounding area is the Low Country (because it’s a swamp).
Yeah, but in every day use, it’s just “Metro Detroit”.
They actually had to go partway up the steps of the Capitol to get to 5280 feet.
We are also the Queen City of the Plains, or dusty boring cowtown, depending. I don’t think there’s any real term for the area including the suburbs. Denver Metro Area, maybe.
Houston is often the “Space City” or the “Bayou City.”
Bethlehem, PA is the Christmas city (I don’t know if anyone actually calls it that, but it’s written on the “welcome to Bethlehem” mural) and is part of the Lehigh Valley.
‘The River Cities’ area.
Marietta and Belpre, OH, Williamstown, Vienna and Parkersburg, WV.
All along the Ohio River and all prone to going from a happy ‘River Cities’ to a ‘DAMN RIVER!’ Cities area depending on whether the river comes over the levee.
Boise, Idaho is “The City of Trees.”
I live in Toronto:
- Hogtown
- The Big Smoke (or is that London?)
- The T-Dot
- The Centre of the Universe
Although I doubt it qualifies as a “metro area” in anyone’s eyes (unless that person is from Blackfoot!), Pocatello ID is officially known as “The Gate City” and unofficially known as “Poca-hell-hole”.
Queen City is the standard nickname for the largest city in a state if it isn’t the capitol. Same with Manchester, NH and many others.
Tacky, but kind of cool.
I live in the Lake Area. I think calling it a metropolitan area would be a stretch.
Folks around here call this area The Sandhills, which is east of us.
That depends on who you ask here. The weatherman is quite sure it includes us.
Very interesting! Thank you for the info!
moi nailed some of the nicknames.
I think that area-wise, you usually hear “Greater Baltimore Area”. You also hear “Greater DC Area”.
Sometimes you hear “Baltimore-DC Corridor”, or “DC-Baltimore Corridor”.
If you’re not really referring to parts south, but really just the area around Baltimore, you’ll hear “Baltimore and surrounding counties”, or “Baltimore Metro Area”. That usually excludes places like Silver Spring, which are really DC Burbs.
My suggestion is to call the whole area “Ball-Wash”.