A borough is an administrative division of various countries. In principle, the term borough designates a self-governing township although, in practice, official use of the term varies widely.
The word 'borough' derives from a common Indo-European language cognate, meaning fort: compare borough, bury (England), burgh (Scotland), burg (Germany), bourg (France), burgo (Spain), borg (Scandinavia), borgo (Italy), burcht (Dutch). The incidence of these words as suffixes to place names (e.g. Canterbury, Strasbourg, Luxembourg, Edinburgh, Hamburg, Gothenburg), usually indicates that they were once fortified settlements.
In other places, such as Alaska, a borough does not designate a single township, but a whole region; Alaska's largest borough, the North Slope Borough, is comparable in area to the entire United Kingdom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boroughs
I guess they call it 'borough' because they can.