Municipalities brain-teaser

[empirestate]

So I noticed just now that in Wisconsin, which has three types of municipalities–city, village and town–there's an example of each named Superior. They're all related, being adjacent to each other and presumably derived from the same original entity (in other words, I assume both the city and the village were split off from the original town of Superior, but the details aren't important).

The question is, where else does this happen? In a state having at least three types of municipality, where else does one (or more) of each type of municipality have the same name?

They can be related, as in the Superior example, or unrelated; for example, in New York the town of Rochester is in a completely different area than the city of Rochester (but there's no village of Rochester, so this one wouldn't count anyhow). Don't include counties as a municipality, and we can ignore oddities like the one "town" in Pennsylvania (so if you find a city, borough and township with the same name in PA, that counts) or the "boroughs" in New York.

[Rothman]

Back when I lived in Superior, I was in a program that visited officials from the city, town and village.  The most concerned about its budget?  The village.

[empirestate]

Well, looks like we're stumped. I guess this is the only place this happens!

[jwolfer]

New Jersey has 4 Washington Townships if I recall correctly. There are 2 Hamilton Townships..
And until 2006 there was Dover borough and Dover Township( now Toms River Township)

Ocean Township in Ocean County( better known as Waretown) and in neighboring Monmouth County there is Ocean Township as well. Then Ocean City in Cape May County

[empirestate]

New Jersey has 4 Washington Townships if I recall correctly. There are 2 Hamilton Townships..
And until 2006 there was Dover borough and Dover Township( now Toms River Township)

Ocean Township in Ocean County( better known as Waretown) and in neighboring Monmouth County there is Ocean Township as well. Then Ocean City in Cape May County

Doesn't matter that there are 4 Washington Townships; there could be only one for it to count. However, there would also have to be a Borough of Washington, Town of Washington, City of Washington and Village of Washington!

Therefore, it's not likely we'll find any place in NJ that works–but it would be impressive if we did!

[Mapmikey]

North Carolina has Townships, which are not functioning government entities in any real way (they were a brief addition to NC governance by Carpetbaggers following the Civil War but were rendered useless about 20 years later) but are still used to identify voting districts and stuff like that...

There are probably several names used in 3 different entities but I will provide one that is related and one that is not:

Durham has a City, County, and Township, all within Durham County

Washington has a City (in Beaufort County), County, and one of the Washington Townships is in Guilford County

[empirestate]

North Carolina has Townships, which are not functioning government entities in any real way (they were a brief addition to NC governance by Carpetbaggers following the Civil War but were rendered useless about 20 years later) but are still used to identify voting districts and stuff like that...

There are probably several names used in 3 different entities but I will provide one that is related and one that is not:

Durham has a City, County, and Township, all within Durham County

Durham County doesn't count (other than for bonus points), and you still need a Town of Durham and a Village of Durham.

Washington has a City (in Beaufort County), County, and one of the Washington Townships is in Guilford County

Same here; you also need a town and a village named Washington.

[jwolfer]

Not every state has towns or villages

[empirestate]

Not every state has towns or villages

Right, so in those states you don't have to find those municipality types.

[briantroutman]

Without doing exhaustive research, I feel pretty confident that this situation doesn't exist in Pennsylvania. Probably the closest you would come is "Washington" –there's Washington County, the City of Washington, 22 (by a quick count) Washington Townships, and the Borough of Washingtonville. "York"  comes similarly close.

The hangup is that there isn't any overlap in the pool of borough and city names. There is, however, a great deal of overlap between the other columns.

[empirestate]

Without doing exhaustive research, I feel pretty confident that this situation doesn't exist in Pennsylvania. Probably the closest you would come is "Washington" –there's Washington County, the City of Washington, 22 (by a quick count) Washington Townships, and the Borough of Washingtonville. "York"  comes similarly close.

The hangup is that there isn't any overlap in the pool of borough and city names. There is, however, a great deal of overlap between the other columns.

Yeah, that's what's weird about Superior. Wisconsin's municipal structure is essentially identical to PA's, so the fact that there's both a city and village of Superior is surprising. The village of Superior would presumably be called "South Superior"–except that's already the name of a section of Superior city.

For the NC example, since their towns, cities and villages are statutorily the same entity, I assume it's impossible for them to share a name.

[bulldog1979]

As far as I know, villages and cities in Michigan have to have unique names, but townships do not, and in many cases, there is a township that shares a name with an adjacent city or village. So while there is a Charter Township of Marquette next to the City of Marquette, and there's another (general law) Township of Marquette in Mackinac County, there could not be a Village of Marquette in the state.

In many cases, a community developed in a township and the two shared a name. Later, that community incorporated as a village within that township and even later incorporated as a city separate from the township. (Michigan's villages overlap any townships and are not completely separate jurisdictions. Residents of the Village of Mackinaw City also residents of either Mackinaw Township in Cheboygan County or Wawatam Township in Emmet County, pay taxes to both, etc.)

[Mr_Northside]

Without doing exhaustive research, I feel pretty confident that this situation doesn't exist in Pennsylvania. Probably the closest you would come is "Washington" –there's Washington County, the City of Washington, 22 (by a quick count) Washington Townships, and the Borough of Washingtonville. "York"  comes similarly close.

The hangup is that there isn't any overlap in the pool of borough and city names. There is, however, a great deal of overlap between the other columns.

Butler County / Township / City also exisits.

[empirestate]

Without doing exhaustive research, I feel pretty confident that this situation doesn't exist in Pennsylvania. Probably the closest you would come is "Washington" –there's Washington County, the City of Washington, 22 (by a quick count) Washington Townships, and the Borough of Washingtonville. "York"  comes similarly close.

The hangup is that there isn't any overlap in the pool of borough and city names. There is, however, a great deal of overlap between the other columns.

Butler County / Township / City also exisits.

Yeah, but is there a Butler borough?

[CNGL-Leudimin]

Those 'municipality types' are Chinese to me, since in my country there are only municipalities. With more or less services according to their population, but just one type.

[empirestate]

Those 'municipality types' are Chinese to me, since in my country there are only municipalities. With more or less services according to their population, but just one type.

That's true in some U.S. states too; several states call all of their municipalities "cities" (although there may be various classes of city based on population). Of course, such states would be ineligible for this particular brain-teaser. :-)

[jp the roadgeek]

Got it: Part of New York City (Manhattan) is in New York County, which is in New York State.

[empirestate]

Got it: Part of New York City (Manhattan) is in New York County, which is in New York State.

Nope, doesn't work. We can ignore the state and the county, and we still need a town of New York and a village of New York.

EDIT: I guess I wasn't clear what the game is here. In the state of New York, for example, there are three types of municipalities: towns, cities and villages. (There are also boroughs in NYC, but as I've said, we can ignore this type of oddity.)

So, for New York to be a winner, we'd have to find at least one town, one city AND one village, all of which have the same name. While we can find many cases where a village and a town have the same name, or a town and a city, to my knowledge there is no city which shares its name with a village–it may even be legally impossible.

Again, we're not including counties here, even though they are legally considered a type of municipality in some states. Clearly, it's enough of a challenge to match all of the sub-county municipalities without having to match the county (or state) as well!

For another example, New Jersey has five types of municipalities: townships, towns, cities, boroughs and villages. So for NJ to be a winner, we need to find five different municipalities, each of a different type and all with the same name. NJ tends to have lots of townships with the same name as each other, but that's perfectly irrelevant; we only need one township of a given name–plus one town, one city, one borough AND one village with that same name.

And again, a state needs at least three types of municipalities to qualify at all, because in a state having only townships and cities, you will likely find many cases where a township and a city have the same name because they are related to each other (the city is located inside of, or was formed from, the township). So there need to be at least three types, and however many types there are, that's how many places we need to find with the same name.

[Thing 342]

Those 'municipality types' are Chinese to me, since in my country there are only municipalities. With more or less services according to their population, but just one type.

Agreed. In Virginia, the only thing below county level that we have to worry about are incorporated towns. Everything else is either unincorporated or a city (which are county-equivalents)

[jeffandnicole]

In NJ there is Gloucester Township, Gloucester City, and Gloucester County. So at least that's 3 different governments.

There's probably a few other examples like this too throughout the state.

[empirestate]

In NJ there is Gloucester Township, Gloucester City, and Gloucester County. So at least that's 3 different governments.

The county doesn't count, so that's two governments, and for NJ you need five.

There's probably a few other examples like this too throughout the state.

You'll find examples like that throughout a number of states, which is why I excluded states with only two types of municipality.

[webfil]

There are 3 municipalities named "Ange-Gardien" (Guardian Angel) in Québec.

 

There are 24 "Notre-Dame", although most of them have had a distinctive blessing mark (woods, mountain, Montauban, etc.) or their constitutive township or seignoiry added as a suffix.

 

It goes the same for the 10 "Sainte-Anne", 7 "Saint-Pierre", 6 "Saint-Joseph", 5 "Saint-André", 5 "Saint-Charles", 5 "Saint-François", 5 "Saint-Gabriel", 5 "Saint-Mathieu", 5 "Saint-Paul", 5 "Saint-Roch", 4 "L'Ascension", 4 "Saint-Augustin", 4 "Saint-Damase", 4 "Saint-Édouard" (there used to be 6 of them not too long ago), 4 "Saint-Eugène", 4 "Saint-Félix", 4 "Saint-Marc", 4 "Saint-Michel", 4 "Sainte-Marie", 3 "La Visitation", 3 "Saint-Alexandre", 3 "Saint-Bernard", 3 "Saint-Cyprien", 3 "Saint-Damase", 3 "Saint-Denis", 3 "Saint-Elzéar", 3 "Saint-Étienne", 3 "Saint-Georges", 3 "Saint-Honoré", 3 "Saint-Isidore", 3 "Saint-Louis", 3 "Saint-Narcisse", 3 "Saint-Nazaire", 3 "Saint-Simon", 3 "Saint-Stanislas", 3 "Sainte-Angèle", 3 "Sainte-Cécile", 3 "Sainte-Clotilde", 3 "Sainte-Hélène", 3 "Sainte-Marguerite", 3 "Sainte-Sophie" and 3 "Sainte-Thérèse". Over the time, either the ministry of Municipal Affairs or the postal services have requested for these municipalities a name change or a suffix addition in order to avoid confusion.

[empirestate]

There are 3 municipalities named "Ange-Gardien" (Guardian Angel) in Québec.

 

It seems there are six types of municipalities in Quebec, so you need to find six "Ange-Gardiens", not three. (Plus it looks as if the three you have already are all the same type, so actually you still need five more.)

There are 24 "Notre-Dame", although most of them have had a distinctive blessing mark (woods, mountain, Montauban, etc.) or their constitutive township or seignoiry added as a suffix.

Not quite similar enough. We can overlook the article "L'" in your prior example (so "Ange-Gardien" counts the same as "l'Ange-Gardien"), but anything coming after "Notre-Dame" would qualify as a different name.