Chikaku, tonari, soba and yoko

I am trying to better understand the specifics of ちかく,となり,そば, and よこ but I am finding contradictory information on the internet.

Seems some words are more specific to location for "near" and others can mean near location or opinion for example.

Could anyone clarify these more?

ちかく,となり,そば, and よこ

ちかく: "near" or "close"
その　がっこう　は　いえ　の　ちかく　です。
The school is near(or close to) my house.

となり: "next"(or next door)" or "beside"
いえ　の　となり　は　きょうかい　です。
The Church is next to our house.

そば："near" or "beside"
いえ　の　そば　に　かわ　が　あります。
There is a river near(or beside) my house.

よこ："beside"
いえ　の　よこ　に　でんちゅう　が　あります。
There is a power(or electric) pole beside our house.

tonari ＞ soba ＞＞　chikaku

if the numbering of houses are like that
1,3,5,7,9
==street==
2,4,6,8,10

House No.3 は House No.5 のとなりです。
No.3 は No.4のとなりではありません。
No.3 は No.4 の向い(mukai)です。
No.3 と No,7はとなり（どうし）ではありません。


そば means physically close.
ちかく means close but not necessary to physically close.
from the standing point of a person who lives in US, Japan と China はちかいです。but, a person living in Japan may think China is far away from Japan.

よこ　is a pair word with たて.
よこ　means an alignment in longitudinal direction.
Houses No.1,3,5,7,9 はよこに並んでいる。
No.3 は No.5 のよこです。

First of all, you can find examples of sentences with these words used by putting quotation marks on them and Googling. It would be better if you add something like "ちかくにある" "そばにある" "となりにある"

Secondly, the easiest to clarify are tonari which always means "next to something" and yoko which always means "on the sideways direction of something" (unless used metaphorically, respectively).

So for example, if you say "A wa B no tonari ni imasu," then it's basically impossible to have a C in between A and B.

And if you say "D no yoko ni E ga arimasu," then E is not in front of D nor at the back of D, but on either the left or right of D.

There's a very thin line between soba and chikaku and most of the time they can be used in the same situation which means "close." But I personally feel that soba simply sounds a bit softer than chikaku. Perhaps for this reason, soba seems to be used more in lyrics, poems and romantic situations.

For example, "soba ni kite" sounds more romantic than "chikaku ni kite."