While chatting with a friend about meeting up in eastern Tokyo, I typed in ひがしとうきょう and my Mac dutifully sent 東東京 out the wire. I quickly clarified with ひがし東京 just so she wouldn't think I had made a weird typo or something.
But is 東東京 actually the correct way to write "eastern Tokyo," or is there a less ambiguous way to do so? Is there a uniform way to refer to directions inside of place names which feature directional kanji - could the same rule apply to "northern Hokkaido" and so on?