A metropolitan area is a large population center consisting of a large metropolis A metropolis is a large city, in most cases with over half a million inhabitants in the city proper, and with a population of at least one million living in its urban agglomeration.[citation needed] Big cities belonging to a larger urban agglomeration, but which are not the core of that agglomeration, are not generally considered a metropolis but and its adjacent zone of influence, or of more than one closely adjoining neighboring central cities A city is a relatively large and permanent urban settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law and their zone of influence. One or more large cities may serve as its hub A transport hub is a place where passengers and cargo are exchanged between vehicles or between transport modes. Public transport hubs include train stations, rapid transit stations, bus stops, tram stop, airports and ferry slips. Freight hubs include classification yards, seaports and truck terminals, or combinations of these. For private or hubs, and the metropolitan area is normally named after either the largest or most important central city within it.

General definition

There has been no significant change in the basic metropolitan area "concept" since its adoption in 1950 ^[1], though significant changes in geographic distributions have occurred since, and is expected to further evolve through time.^[2] Because of the fluidity and evolution of the "term" metropolitan statistical areas, the colloquial reference by the general population and media to define an MSA is with a more familiar reference to "metro service area, metro area, metro, or MSA" and widely intimated to mean the aggregate geographic area inclusive of not only a well known city population, but also its inner city, suburban, exurban and sometimes rural surrounding populations, all of which are influenced by employment, transportation, and commerce of the more largely well known urban city.

A metropolitan area usually combines an agglomeration In the study of human settlements, an urban agglomeration is an extended city or town area comprising the built-up area of a central place and any suburbs linked by continuous urban area. In France, INSEE the French Statistical Institute, translate it as "Unité urbaine" which means continuous urbanized area. However, because of (the contiguous built-up area) with peripheral zones not themselves necessarily urban in character, but closely bound to the center by employment or commerce. These zones are also sometimes known as a commuter belt, and may extend well beyond the urban periphery depending on the definition used. It is mainly the area that is not part of the city but is connected to the city. For example, Pasadena, California Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and the Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home of many leading scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena City College (PCC), the Jet Propulsion would be added to Los Angeles Los Angeles is the second largest city in the United States, the largest city in the state of California and the Western United States, with a population of 3.83 million within its administrative limits on a land area of 498.3 square miles (1,290.6 km2). The urban area of Los Angeles extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population' metro area. While it isn't the same city, it is connected, and Pasadena is also located in Los Angeles County.

The core cities in a polycentric metropolitan area need not be physically connected by continuous built-up development, distinguishing the concept from conurbation A conurbation is a region comprising a number of cities, large towns, and other urban areas that, through population growth and physical expansion, have merged to form one continuous urban and industrially developed area. In most cases, a conurbation is a polycentric urban agglomeration, in which transportation has developed to link areas to, which requires urban contiguity. In a metropolitan area, it is sufficient that central cities together constitute a large population nucleus with which other constituent parts have a high degree of integration.

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 the traditional concept of a city as a single urban settlement. Thus all metropolitan area figures should be treated as interpretations rather than as hard facts. Metro area population figures given by different sources for the same place 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]}

Country official unique definitions

United States

The Office of Management and Budget The Office of Management and Budget is a Cabinet-level office, and is the largest office within the Executive Office of the President of the United States (EOP) 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 In the United States, a county is a local level of government below the state . Counties are used in 48 of the 50 states, while Louisiana is divided into parishes and Alaska into boroughs. These are considered "county-equivalents", as are independent cities not designated as part of a county. The U.S. Census Bureau lists 3,140 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 In the United States, a metropolitan area refers to a geographical region with a relatively high population density at its core and close economic ties throughout the area. Such regions are not legally incorporated as a city or town would be, nor are they legal administrative divisions like counties or states. As such the precise definition of any or micropolitan statistical areas United States Micropolitan Statistical Areas , as defined by the Census Bureau and the Office of Management and Budget, are urban areas in the United States based around a core city or town with a population of 10,000 to 49,999. The micropolitan area designation was created in 2003. Like the better-known metropolitan area, a micropolitan area is a, based on population size; a "metro" area has an urban core of at least 50,000 residents, while a "micro" area has less than 50,000 but at least 10,000.^[3]

Australia

In Australia For at least 40,000 years before European settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who belonged to one or more of the roughly 250 language groups. After sporadic visits by fishermen from the immediate north and discovery by Dutch explorers in 1606, Australia's eastern half was claimed by the British, Statistical Divisions (SDs) are defined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics The Australian Bureau of Statistics is Australia's national statistical agency. It came into being, as the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, on 8 December 1905, when the Census and Statistics Act 1905 was given Royal assent. It had its beginnings in section 51 (xi) of the Constitution of Australia. The founding fathers[who?] recognised as areas under the unifying influence of one or more major towns or cities. Each capital city forms its own Statistical Division, and the population of the SD is the most-often quoted figure for that city's population. Statistical Districts are defined as non-capital but predominantly urban areas. The statistical divisions that encompass the capital cities are commonly though unofficially called 'metropolitan areas'.^[4]

Japan

In Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The characters that make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin", which is why Japan is a metropolita area would be toshiken (都市圏^?, lit. bloc of cities).

European Union

The European Union The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 member states which are located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht in 1993 upon the foundations of the European Communities. With over 500 million citizens, the EU combined generated an estimated 28% share (US$ 16.5's statistical agency, Eurostat Eurostat is a Directorate-General of the European Commission located in Luxembourg. Its main responsibilities are to provide the European Union with statistical information at European level and to promote the harmonisation of statistical methods across the Member States of the European Union, candidate countries and EFTA countries. The, has created a concept named Larger Urban Zone Eurostat, the European Union's statistical agency, has created the concept of Larger Urban Zone in an effort to harmonise definitions of urbanisation in the European Union and in countries outside the European Union. These definitions were agreed between Eurostat and the National Statistics Offices of the different countries of the European Union (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”.^[5]

France

In France France (pronounced /ˈfrænts/ frantss or /ˈfrɑːnts/ frahnts; French pronunciation (help·info): [fʁɑ̃s]), officially the French Republic (French: République française, pronounced: [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a state in Western Europe with several of its overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, the term for the region around an urban core linked by commuting ties is an aire urbaine The aire urbaine is a statistical region created by the INSEE (National statistics bureau of France) that is comprised by a commuter belt (couronne périurbaine) surrounding a contiguous urban core (pôle urbain). As defined, it is similar (though not identical) to the more general term, "metropolitan area", used in English (officially translated as "urban area").

Republic of India

In India India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with 1.18 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world. Mainland India is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal on the, the Census Commission defines a metropolitan city one having a population of over 40 lakh (4 million).^[6] Mumbai Mumbai (Marathi: मुंबई, Mumbaī, IPA: [ˈmʊm.bəi] ), formerly called Bombay, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the second most populous city in the world, with a population of approximately 14 million. Along with the neighbouring urban areas, including the cities of Navi, Delhi Delhi, known locally as Dilli , and by the official name National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT), is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest metropolis by population in India. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with more than 12.25 million inhabitants in the territory and with nearly 22.2 million, Chennai Chennai , formerly known as Madras (Tamil: மெட்ராஸ் AKA மதறாஸ்), is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the fifth most populous city in India. Located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal, Chennai city had a population of 4.34 million in, Kolkata Kolkata ( Kolkata (Bengali: কলকাতা) ; IPA: [ˈkolkat̪a], formerly called Calcutta (help·info)), is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Kolkata is the cultural capital of India and the commercial capital of Eastern India. It is located in eastern India on the east bank of the Hooghly River. The Kolkata metropolitan area, Bengaluru Bangalore [ˈbæŋɡəlɔːr] , also known as Bengaḷūru (Kannada: ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು, [ˈbeŋɡəɭuːru]( listen)) , is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and fifth-most populous urban agglomeration, Hyderabad Hyderabad is the capital and the most populous city of the South Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is known as the "City of Pearls", the "City of Nizams" and the "City of Nawabs", Ahmedabad Ahmedabad is the seventh largest metropolitan city in India, with a population of approximately 5.2 million. Located on the banks of the River Sabarmati, the city is the administrative centre of Ahmedabad district and was the capital of Gujarat from 1960 to 1970; the capital was shifted to Gandhinagar thereafter. In colloquial Gujarati, the city, Surat Surat formerly known as Suryapur, is the commercial capital city of the Indian state of Gujarat and also Second largest commercial hub of western India after Mumbai. The city proper is the one of the most populous cities in the world. Surat is the administrative capital of Surat district and Surat Metropolitan Region. Surat is India's eighth, Pune Pune , also known as 'Punawadi' or Punya-Nagari, is the eighth largest city and eighth largest metropolis in India, and the second largest in the state of Maharashtra, after Mumbai. Once the capital of the Maratha Empire, situated 560 metres above sea level on the Deccan plateau at the confluence of the Mula (Marathi: मुळा) and Mutha^[7] are the nine 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.

Unofficial abbreviations

The term metropolitan area is sometimes abbreviated to 'metro', for example in Metro Manila Metropolitan Manila or the National Capital Region (NCR) (Filipino: Pambansang Punong Rehiyon) is the metropolitan region encompassing the City of Manila and its surrounding areas in the Philippines. It is composed of 16 cities—namely Manila itself, Caloocan, Las Piñas, Makati, Malabon, Mandaluyong, Marikina, Muntinlupa, Navotas, Pasay, Pasig, and Washington, DC Metro Area The Washington Metropolitan Area, formally known as the Washington–Arlington–Alexandria, DC–VA–MD–WV MSA, is a U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Area defined by the United States Office of Management and Budget. It is also part of the larger Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area, the fourth-largest combined statistical area in the United, which in the latter case should not be mistaken to metro rail system Metrorail, commonly called Metro, is the rapid transit system in Washington, D.C., United States, and its surrounding suburbs. It is administered by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority , which also operates Metrobus service under the Metro name. In Maryland, Metro provides service to Montgomery County and Prince George's County; in of the city.

Megalopolis

This concept was first proposed by the French geographer Jean Gottmann Jean Gottmann FRS (10 October 1915 – 28 February 1994) was a French geographer who was most widely known for his seminal study on the urban region of the Northeast Megalopolis. His main contributions to human geography were in the sub-fields of urban, political, economic, historical and regional geography. His regional specializations ranged in his book Megalopolis, a study of the northeastern United States. One famous example is the Northeast megalopolis The Northeast megalopolis or Boston–Washington megalopolis is the heavily urbanized area of the United States stretching from the southern suburbs of Washington, D.C. to the northern suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts. As of 2000, the region supported over 17% of the U.S. population on less than 2% of the nation’s land area, with a population consisting of Boston Boston (pronounced /ˈbɒstən/ ) is the capital and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. Boston city proper had a 2009, New York City New York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over global commerce, finance, media, culture, art, fashion, research, education, and entertainment. As host of the, Philadelphia Philadelphia is the largest city in Pennsylvania and the sixth-most-populous city in the United States, Baltimore Baltimore , the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the U.S. state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore City in order to distinguish it from surrounding, Washington Washington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790. The City of Washington was originally a separate municipality within the Territory of Columbia until an act of Congress in 1871 effectively merged the City and the, and their vicinities.

The biggest one is the Taiheiyō Belt (the Pacific megalopolis) in Japan consisting of Tokyo Tokyo , officially Tokyo Metropolis (東京都, Tōkyō-to?), is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. It is located on the eastern side of the main island Honshū and includes the Izu Islands and Ogasawara Islands. Tokyo Metropolis was formed in 1943 from the merger of the former Tokyo Prefecture (Tokyo-fu) and the city of Tokyo. Tokyo is the, Shizuoka Shizuoka Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region on Honshū island. The capital is the city of Shizuoka, Nagoya Nagoya is the third-largest incorporated city and the fourth most populous urban area in Japan, Osaka Osaka listen (help·info) is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshū, the designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the heart of Greater Osaka Area. Located at the mouth of the Yodo River on Osaka Bay. Osaka is the third largest city by population after Tokyo and Yokohama, Okayama Okayama is the capital city of Okayama Prefecture in the Chūgoku region of Japan, Hiroshima Hiroshima ( listen (help·info)) is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshū, the largest island of Japan. It became the first city in history destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States of America dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15am on August 6, 1945, near the end of World War, Fukuoka Fukuoka is the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture and is situated on the northern shore of the island of Kyūshū in Japan and vicinity. The main transportation such as Shinkansen The Shinkansen , also known as the bullet train, is a network of high-speed railway lines in Japan operated by four Japan Railways Group companies. Starting with the 210 km/h (130 mph) Tōkaidō Shinkansen in 1964, the now 2,459 km (1,528 mi) long network has expanded to link most major cities on the islands of Honshū and Kyūshū at speeds up to and expressways is constructed along these cities. The population of this megalopolis is around 82.9 million.

Guangdong Province Guangdong is a province on the southern coast of People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province. It surpassed Henan and Sichuan to become the most populous province in China in January 2005, registering 79 million permanent residents and 31 million migrants who lived in's Pearl River Delta The Pearl River Delta or Zhusanjiao (simplified Chinese: 珠江三角洲; traditional Chinese: 珠江三角洲; pinyin: Zhūjiāng Sānjiǎozhōu) in southern People's Republic of China is the low-lying area alongside the Pearl River estuary where the Pearl River flows into the South China Sea. Since economic liberalisation was adopted by the is a huge 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.^[8]

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 (Knooppunt Arnhem-Nijmegen and Brabantse Stedenrij are counted with 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.

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.

It has been suggested that the whole of south-eastern, Midland and parts of northern England will evolve into a megalopolis dominated by London. Clearly when usage is stretched this far, it is remote from the traditional conception of a city.

Megacity is a general term for agglomerations or metropolitan areas which usually have a total population in excess of 10 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, as many cities so named have both rural and urban portions. It also doesn't need 10 million inhabitants to bear the designation. Moreover, Canadian "megacities" do not constitute large metropolitan areas in a global sense. For example, Toronto has a metropolitan population of 6 million but is part of a much larger metropolitan area home to over 8.1 million people.

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 near 4,000,000, but has two metropolitan area populations, depending on definition, 13 million in the core area and 18 million in the Combined statistical area.

See also

• Developed environments

Metropolitan Planning Theories

• Smart growth
• New Urbanism
• Transit-oriented development

Terms

Lists of metropolitan areas

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

References

1. ^ http://www.census.gov/population/www/metroareas/aboutmetro.html
2. ^ http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/rewrite/fedreg/msa.html
3. ^ Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas, U.S. Census Bureau
4. ^ 1217.0.55.001 - Glossary of Statistical Geography Terminology, 2003, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2003
5. ^ about LUZ
6. ^ Ahmedabad yet to become mega city
7. ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_by_population
8. ^ China's urban population to reach 800 to 900 million by 2020: expert

External links

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

Categories: Metropolitan areas | Urban geography | Demography | Population

See Also:

• List of Texas Metropolitan Areas: Encyclopedia

What Links Here:

• Home

Recently Viewed Pages:

• Home
• Brain Drain: Encyclopedia
• Tex: Dictionary
• Texas Cattle Fever: Dictionary
• Texas: Dictionary
• United States of America: Dictionary
• Culture of Texas: Encyclopedia
• United States: Encyclopedia
• Rio Grande: Encyclopedia
• Chats and Forums: Images

Most Popular Pages:

• Dobie, J. Frank: Blogs
• Academic: Answers
• Carpa Garcia: Blogs
• Fort Hood, Texas: Images
• Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center: Images
• Abilene, Texas: Shopping
• By Locality: Images
• Culture of Texas: Encyclopedia
• Fisher: Images
• Texan

Related 'Metropolitan Area' Searches: