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Densely populated metropolitan area (Western Tokyo)

The term metropolitan area refers to a region consisting of a densely populated urban core and its less-populated surrounding territories, sharing industry, infrastructure, and housing.^[1] A metropolitan area usually comprises multiple jurisdictions and municipalities: neighborhoods, townships, cities, exurbs, counties, and even states. As social, economic and political institutions have changed, metropolitan areas have become key economic and political regions.^[2]

General definition[link]

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Greater Buenos Aires, Argentina.

A metropolitan area combines an urban agglomeration (the contiguous, built-up area) with zones not necessarily urban in character, but closely bound to the center by employment or other commerce. These outlying zones are sometimes known as a commuter belt, and may extend well beyond the urban zone, to other political entities. For example, El Monte, California is considered part of the Los Angeles' metro area.

In practice, the parameters of metropolitan areas, in both official and unofficial usage, are not consistent. Sometimes they are little different from an urban area, and in other cases they cover broad regions that have little relation to a single urban settlement; comparative statistics for metropolitan area should take this into account. Population figures given for one metro area can vary by millions, and there is a tendency for people to promote the highest figure available for their own "city". However the most ambitious metropolitan area population figures are often better seen as the population of a "metropolitan region" than of a "city".^{[citation needed]}

There has been no significant change in the basic concept of metropolitan areas since its adoption in 1950,^[3] although significant changes in geographic distributions have occurred since then, and more are expected.^[4] Because of the fluidity of the term "metropolitan statistical area," the term used colloquially is more often "metro service area," "metro area," or "MSA" taken to include not only a city, but also surrounding suburban, exurban and sometimes rural areas, all which it is presumed to influence.

A polycentric metropolitan area is one not connected by continuous development or conurbation, which requires urban contiguity. In defining a metropolitan area, it is sufficient that a city or cities constitute a nucleus with which other areas have a high degree of integration.

Country official unique definitions[link]

Perth is arguably the most isolated metropolitan area in the world.^{[citation needed]}

Vancouver, on Canada's Pacific Coast

Paris, one of Europe's major centres

Istanbul, the only metropolitan area that spans two continents.

Mumbai, Financial Capital of India.

Chicago, on the Great Lakes.

Australia[link]

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The Australian Bureau of Statistics defines 'statistical divisions' as areas under the unifying influence of one or more major towns or a major city.^[5] Each of the state and territory capital cities as well as the national capital, Canberra, forms its own statistical division, and the population of the statistical division is the figure most often quoted for that city's population. However, this definition has largely become obsolete with the conurbation of several statistical divisions into a larger metropolitan areas. For example, the City of Brisbane, the capital city of Queensland, has long since become contiguous with the surrounding cities of Ipswich, Logan City, Redland City, Redcliffe, Pine Rivers, Caboolture and the Gold Coast. This conurbation is common to all the major metropolitan areas of Australia which include all the capital cities and many major regional centres such as the Gold Coast, Newcastle, Wollongong, Geelong, Townsville, Cairns and Toowoomba.

Canada[link]

Statistics Canada defines a census metropolitan area (CMA) and census agglomeration (CA) as areas consisting of one or more adjacent municipalities situated around a major urban core. To form a CMA, the metropolitan area must have a population of at least 100,000, at least half within the urban core. To form a CA, the urban core must have a population of at least 10,000. To be included in the CMA or CA, adjacent municipalities must have a high degree of integration with the core, as measured by commuter flows derived from census data.^[6]

European Union[link]

The European Union's statistical agency, Eurostat, has created a concept named Larger Urban Zone (LUZ). The LUZ represents an attempt at a harmonised definition of the metropolitan area, and the goal was to have an area from a significant share of the resident commute into the city, a concept known as the “functional urban region”.^[7]

France[link]

In France the term for the region around an urban core linked by commuting ties is an aire urbaine (officially translated as "urban area").^{[citation needed]}

Turkey[link]

The word metropolitan, describes a major city in Turkey like Istanbul, a city which is dominant to others both in financially and socially.^[8] There are 16 officially defined "state metropolitan areas" in Turkey, for governing purposes.^[9] More than ten of these metropolitan areas are populated with more than one million people: Istanbul (10+ Million), Ankara (4+ Million), Izmir (3+ Million), Bursa (2+ Million), Adana, Gaziantep, Konya, Antalya, Samsun, Kayseri and Mersin.

Istanbul-Kocaeli-Sakarya-Yalova-Bursa metropolitan areas, almost continuously inhabited, form one single megalopolitan area around the eastern part of Marmara Sea, with total population of almost 20 Million and with the combined economy of US$750 Billion. Istanbul metropolitan area itself has a population of 12+ Million and an economy of almost US$500 Billion.

India[link]

Rajarhat which is in the city of Kolkata is a newly established township, consisting of gated high rise apartment complexes. In this image, Uniworld City, a mini-township

In India, the Census Commission defines a metropolitan city one having a population of over 4 million.^[10] Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Siliguri , Pune, and Ahmedabad are the Indian cities that qualify. Residents of these cities are also entitled to a higher house rent allowance. The figure only applies to the city region and not the conurbation.^{[citation needed]}

Israel[link]

In Israel there are 4 metropolitan areas: Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa and Beersheba. Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area in late 2005 numbered about three million inhabitants. This is a center of metropolitan employment and business in Israel. Today, some argue that the Tel Aviv metropolitan area - Gush Dan, will be deployed in future from Hadera to Gedera (for all "rings" - inner, middle and outer).^{[citation needed]}

Japan[link]

In Japan a metropolitan area would be toshiken (都市圏^?, lit. block of cities).^{[citation needed]}

United States[link]

The Office of Management and Budget defines Core Based Statistical Areas used for statistics purposes among federal agencies. Each CBSA is based on a core urban area and is composed of the counties which comprise that core as well as any surrounding counties that are tightly socially or economically integrated with it. These areas are designated as either metropolitan or micropolitan statistical areas, based on population size; a "metro" area has an urban core of at least 50,000 residents, while a "micro" area has fewer than 50,000 but at least 10,000.^[11]

Megalopolis[link]

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This concept of a "megalopolis" was first proposed by the French geographer Jean Gottmann in his book Megalopolis, a study of the northeastern United States. One prominent example of a megalopolis is the Northeast megalopolis consisting of Boston, Hartford, Greater New York City, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Delaware, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and their vicinities. Two other prominent megalopolises in North America are as follows:

1. In California and Baja California, Ventura County, Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Diego County, part of Riverside County, part of San Bernardino County, Tijuana Municipality, Rosarito Beach Municipality, Mexicali Municipality, and Tecate Municipality. There are hundreds of cities and towns in this megalopolis, with the largest ones being Los Angeles, Long Beach, Irvine, Anaheim, San Diego, and Tijuana.
2. The bi-national Great Lakes Megalopolis consists of the group of North American metropolitan areas surrounding the Great Lakes region within the Midwestern United States, Southern Ontario, and parts of Pennsylvania, New York, and Quebec. The region extends from the Milwaukee–Chicago corridor to the Detroit–Toronto corridor, and includes Buffalo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Erie, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis, Louisville, Ottawa, Rochester, and Toledo, reaching as far as Pittsburgh and St. Louis. The region had an estimated population of 54 million for the 2000 Census and is projected to reach about 65 million by 2025.

The world's largest megalopolis is probably is the Taiheiyō Belt (the Pacific megalopolis) of Japan on southeastern Honshu that consists of the metropolis of Tokyo, Shizuoka, Yokohama, Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe, Okayama, Yokosuka, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, Kure, and their surrounding cities and towns. Major means of ground transportation in Japan such as its railroad network (for both passengers and freight), many expressways, and the "Shinkansen" bullet train are concentrated in this region, which also includes the northern shore of the Inland Sea of Japan. This is a highly-industrialized part of Japan, and it is also the location of its most important seaports in Japan - such as at Yokohama, Osaka, Kobe, Hiroshima, and Kure - and its most important international airports - such as at Tokyo and Osaka. The population of this megalopolis can be considered to be as high as 83 million people, depending on where one draws its boundaries.

Guangdong Province's Pearl River Delta is a megalopolis with a population of 48 million that extends from Hong Kong and Shenzhen to Guangzhou. Some projections assume that by 2030 up to 1 billion people will live in China's urban areas. Even rather conservative projections predict an urban population of up to 800 million people. In its most recent assessment, the UN Population Division estimated an urban population of 1 billion in 2050.^[12]

The megalopolises in Europe are the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region (pop. 11.5 million) in Germany, the Milan metropolitan area (pop. 7.4 million) in Italy, the Randstad in the Netherlands (pop. 7.4 million), the Flemish Diamond in Belgium (pop. 5.5 million), Ile de France in France and the metropolitan area of London and Moscow, as well as several 'smaller' agglomerations, such as the Meuse-Rhine Euregion, the Ems-Dollart Region, the Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai Euregion and Metropoly of Upper Silesia in Poland (17 cities around Katowice with a total population of over 2 million). Together this megalopolis has an estimated population of around 50 million. In Turkey, multiple cities around Istanbul, Istanbul-Kocaeli-Sakarya-Yalova-Bursa metropolitan areas, almost continuously inhabited, form one single megalopolitan area to the east of Istanbul around the eastern part of Marmara Sea, with total population of almost 20 Million and with the combined economy of US$750 Billion.

It has been suggested^[who?] that most of southeastern England, the Midlands and parts of northern England will someday evolve into a megalopolis dominated by London.^{[citation needed]} Clearly when usage is stretched this far, it is remote from the traditional conception of a city.^{[citation needed]}

Africa's first megalopolis is situated in the urban portion of Gauteng Province in South Africa, comprising the conurbation of Johannesburg, and the metropolitan areas of Pretoria and the Vaal Triangle, otherwise known as the PWV.

Megacity is a general term for metropolitan areas which usually have a total population in excess of ten million people. In Canada, "megacity" can also refer informally to the results of merging a central city with its suburbs to form one large municipality. A Canadian "megacity", however, is not necessarily an entirely urbanized area, since many of its named "cities" have both rural and urban portions. Also, 10 million inhabitants is an unreasonably high number for Canada. Moreover, Canadian "megacities" do not constitute large metropolitan areas in a global sense. For example, Toronto has a metropolitan population of about five million people, but is part of a much larger metropolitan region called the Golden Horseshoe, which has about eight million people.

The census population of a metro area is not the city population. However, it better demonstrates the population of the city. Los Angeles may only have a city population of slightly less than four million, but depending on the definition, it has a metropolitan area population of either 13 million, or 18 million people in its combined statistical area. A major question is whether or not to include San Diego and Tijuana.

See also[link]

• Developed environments
• Economic restructuring
• Metropolitan Statistical Area
• metropolitan economy
• Urban sprawl

Metropolitan Planning Theories[link]

• New Urbanism
• Smart growth
• Transit-oriented development

Terms[link]

Lists of metropolitan areas[link]

• List of metropolitan areas that overlap multiple countries
• List of metropolitan areas by population
  • List of urban areas by population

References[link]

External links[link]

• Metropolis.org, An organisation of world metropolises
• Urban Employment Areas in Japan (Metropolitan Employment Areas in Japan)
• Turismo.fvg.it, (Metropolis read by maps in Friuli Venezia Giulia - Northeast of Italy - EU)
• Geopolis : research group, university of Paris-Diderot, France — Urbanization of the world