According to a telephone directory that formerly published specific editions for the area, this region includes Aurora, Blasdell, East Aurora, Elma, Hamburg, and Orchard Park. Several other towns in the snowbelt south of Buffalo are also considered part of the Southtowns. According to one source the entire southern part of Erie County, West Seneca, Elma, Marilla, and southward are part of the Buffalo Southtowns. This region is the northwesternmost foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. The New York State Department of Transportation's Scenic Byways Advisory Board created Western New York's first Scenic Byway, WNY Southtowns Scenic Byway, which travels through the townships of Orchard Park, Boston, Concord, Colden and Aurora, the three villages of Orchard Park, Springville and East Aurora and several rural hamlets including the hamlets of Boston and Colden. The National Weather Service defines the Southtowns as anything south of U.S. Route 20A. The region includes the northeastern half of the village of Gowanda, but not the southwestern half. Buffalo also has a "Northtown" region north of the city. Some sources divide the entire Buffalo Suburban region into the Southtowns and the Northtowns. Ski country runs through the Southtowns, as does the Niagara Frontier, both of which continue southwestward from the region along Lake Erie's shoreline; the Niagara Frontier continues north into Buffalo toward Niagara Falls while ski country goes eastward toward Bristol Mountain. The region is bounded to the south by the Cattaraugus Creek and Cattaraugus County to the south, Chautauqua County to the southwest, to the east by Wyoming County, and to the west by Lake Erie. The Southtowns, particularly the more southerly towns closer to the Cattaraugus Creek, are very rural in nature and are similar to the Southern Tier; the northern Southtowns begin to take on a more suburban feel.
Three broadcast stations are explicitly licensed to the Southtowns: WSPQ in Springville, religious TV stationWDTB-LD in Hamburg, and MeTV affiliate WBBZ-TV in Springville. None of them operate from within the southtowns; WBBZ is based in Clarence and WDTB is a straight satellite feed from Texas, while WSPQ, which operated out of Springville for its entire existence, shut down at the end of 2017 and, due to an equipment robbery, is slated to lose its license at the end of 2018. However, several of the Buffalo-licensed broadcasters take advantage of the region's higher topography and have placed their broadcast towers there so that they can reach both the Buffalo region and the Southern Tier. One of the more notable examples is the WIVB/WTSS tower. The Buffalo News is the primary daily newspaper in the region. Many of the Southtowns communities were served by weekly newspapers until July 2016, when the most recent owner of those newspapers, Community Papers of Western New York, abruptly shut down. The Springville Times serves the village of Springville using staff of one of the former Community Papers, the Springville Journal; the Times is based in Ellicottville. Likewise, the Salamanca Press launched a Gowanda edition to replace the Gowanda Pennysaver/News in August 2016.
