I’d like to conduct a survey of regional names that cities calll themselves and their surrounding areas. You often hear these on your local news: “Let’s get a check of Southland traffic.”
Here’s what I can think of:[ul]
[li]L.A., Ventura and Orange counties are “The Southland.” This sometimes includes Riverside and San Bernadino counties.[/li]
[li]The Dallas-Fort Worth area is called “The Metroplex.”[/li]
[li]Chicago’s surrounding area is called “Chicagoland.”[/li]
[li]Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey make up “The Tri-State area.” Or is this only Philadelphia, New Jersey and NYC, where the 3 states really come together?[/li]
[li]Minnesota and St. Paul are, of course, the “Twin Cities.”[/li]
[li]But – who are the “Tri-Cities” and the “Quad-Cities”?[/li][/ul]
I’m not counting conventional names like “South Florida” for the Miami area.
So, what are some others? St. Louis? Houston? Boston?
Ha, I live in the Tri-Cities. Just three small cities in northeast Tennessee & southwest Virginia (they would be Kingsport, Johnson City, and Bristol) plus all of the surrounding communities.
I don’t actually use the name all that often. No need. I just use the city names if I’m telling someone where I live. They rarely know what I’m talking about, but that’s okay, right?
Wrong on both counts. It’s NYC, New Jersey and Connecticut, which is much closer to NYC than PA is. Is my home state that forgettable?
There’s actually another Tri-Cities area in Washington state. The Quad Cities are Rock Island, IL, Moline, IL, Davenport, IA and Bettendorf, IA.
San Francisco and surroundings are the Bay Area, while San Jose is Silicon Valley. I’ve heard greater Boston refered to as Silicon Alley. There’s also the Research Triangle in NC (Raleigh-Durham, Greensboro and Chapel Hill I think, I just know the Whalers went there). I think the Atlanta area has a nickname.
Me, I’m from Hartford, CT, which is unworthy of a nickname.
Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey make up “The Tri-State area.” Or is this only Philadelphia, New Jersey and NYC, where the 3 states really come together?
Heh. I always thought the Tri State Area was PA, NY, and Ohio, or maybe PA, OH, and WV. I grew up in Western PA, so perhaps both areas use that nomer.
I live in Portland OR, which is part of Pacific NW, which I’ve taken to mean anywhere from Southern Oregon to Northern Washington.
Texarkana lies on the border between Texas and Arkansas, just a few miles north of Louisana and southeast of Oklahoma.
The big annual fair is the Four States Fair and Rodeo.
Mostly, though, Oklahoma is ignored and the region is referred to as the Ark-La-Tex. For instance the TV stations have studios in both Shreveport, La and Texarkana.
Philly, Delaware, and SOUTH Jersey are known as either “the Delaware Valley” or “the Greater Philadelphia Area” or just “Philly.” NORTH Jersey is the part attached to NYC. The basic borders are Valley Forge, Trenton, Tom’s River, Cape May, and Wilmington.
The way-NE NY and way-NW VT is called the “Champlain Valley.” Where I go to school, in middle/western MA along the Connecticut River, is called the “Pioneer Valley.”
The area from Oshawa through Toronto and Hamilton and around the end of Lake Ontario to Niagara-on-the-Lake is called “The Golden Horseshoe”. This name is not used very often, and has a vaguely archaic ring to it, as if it were straight out of a 1950s real-estate booster’s vocabulary.
The area around Toronto itself–defined roughly by Burlington in the west, Newmarket in the north, and Newcastle in the east–is the “Greater Toronto Area”. Historically this has been the area that has a high number of commuters to downown Toronto, although this is changing. This term, and its abbreviation GTA, pops up in newpapers, the name of organizations, on multi-region bus pases, and is quite current.
Northeast Florida, largely the Jacksonville area, goes by “Florida’s First Coast” - I assume it refers to St. Augustine being the oldest city. A little farther south is “Florida’s Space Coast” and I think there’s a “Florida’s Gold Coast” too.
I recall a radio commentator of my youth (can’t recall his name tho) referring to Baltimore as the “Queen City of the Patapsco River Basin”
I used to live in King George, Virginia, and it’s part of the “Northern Neck of Virginia.”
