A metropolis is a large city 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, 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 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.^{[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 a part of it. A metropolis is usually a significant economic An economy consists of the economic system of a country or other area, the labor, capital and land resources, and the economic agents that socially participate in the production, exchange, distribution, and consumption of goods and services of that area. A given economy is the end result of a process that involves its technological evolution,, political Politics , is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to behavior within civil governments, but politics has been observed in other group interactions, including corporate, academic, and religious institutions. It consists of "social relations involving authority or power" and refers and cultural Culture is a term that has different meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions. However, the word "culture" is most commonly used in three basic senses: center for some country A country is a geographical region considered to be the physical territory of a sovereign state, or to a smaller, or former, political division within a geographical region. Usually, but not always, a country coincides with a sovereign territory and is associated with a state, nation or government or region Region is most commonly a geographical term that is used in various ways among the different branches of geography. In general, a region may be seen as a collection of smaller units or as one part of a larger whole (as in "the New England region of the United States"). Regions can be defined by physical characteristics, human, and an important hub for regional or international connections and communications. The plural of the word is most commonly metropolises, though metropoleis is sometimes used as well.

In a broader sense, it refers to the city or state of origin of a colony In politics and in history, a colony is a territory under the immediate political control of a state. For colonies in antiquity, city-states would often found their own colonies. Some colonies were historically countries, while others were territories without definite statehood from their inception. The metropolitan state is the state that owns (as of ancient Greece Ancient Greece is the civilization belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. At the center of this time period is Classical Greece, which flourished during the 5th to 4th centuries BC, at first under Athenian), a city regarded as a center of a specified activity, or a large important city.

Antiquity

In the past, metropolis was the designation for a city or state of origin of a colony In politics and in history, a colony is a territory under the immediate political control of a state. For colonies in antiquity, city-states would often found their own colonies. Some colonies were historically countries, while others were territories without definite statehood from their inception. The metropolitan state is the state that owns. Many large cities founded by ancient civilizations have been considered important world metropolises of their times due to their large populations and importance. Some of these ancient metropolises survived until the modern days and are among the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities.

Etymology and modern usage

The word comes from the Greek μήτηρ, mētēr meaning "mother" and πόλις, pólis meaning "city"/"town", which is how the Greek colonies Colonies in antiquity were city-states founded from a mother-city, not from a territory-at-large. Bonds between a colony and its metropolis remained often close, and took specific forms. However, unlike in the period of European colonialism, ancient colonies were usually sovereign and self-governing from their inception of antiquity referred to their original cities, with whom they retained cultic and political-cultural connections. The word was used in post-classical Latin for the chief city of a province, the seat of the government and, in particular, ecclesiastically for the seat or see of a metropolitan bishop In Christian churches with episcopal polity, the rank of metropolitan bishop, or simply metropolitan, pertains to the diocesan bishop or archbishop of a metropolis; that is, the chief city of a historical Roman province, ecclesiastical province, or regional capital to whom suffragan bishops A suffragan bishop is a bishop subordinate to a metropolitan bishop or diocesan bishop. He may be assigned to an area which does not have a cathedral of its own were responsible. This usage equates the province with the diocese In some forms of Christianity, a diocese is an administrative territorial unit administered by a bishop. It is also referred to as a bishopric or Episcopal Area /episcopal see, though strictly the term episcopal see refers to the domain of ecclesiastical authority officially held by the bishop, and bishopric to the post of being bishop. The or episcopal see An episcopal see is, in the original sense, the official seat of a bishop. This seat, which is also referred to as the bishop's cathedra, is placed in the bishop's principal church, which is therefore called the bishop's cathedral. The seat is also called the bishop's throne, especially in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

In modern usage the word is frequently mis-used to refer to a metropolitan area A metropolitan area is a large population center consisting of a large metropolis and its adjacent zone of influence, or of more than one closely adjoining neighboring central cities and their zone of influence. One or more large cities may serve as its hub or hubs, and the metropolitan area is normally named after either the largest or most, a set of adjacent and interconnected 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 clustered around a major urban center. In this sense metropolitan usually means "spanning the whole metropolis" (as in "metropolitan administration"); or "proper of a metropolis" (as in "metropolitan life", and opposed to "provincial A province is a territorial unit, almost always an administrative division, within a country or state" or "rural").

Global cities

The concept of a Global city A global city is a city deemed to be an important node point in the global economic system. The concept comes from geography and urban studies and rests on the idea that globalization can be understood as largely created, facilitated and enacted in strategic geographic locales according to a hierarchy of importance to the operation of the global (or a World city) means a city that has a direct and tangible effect on global affairs through socioeconomic means. The term has become increasingly familiar, because of the rise of globalization Globalization describes a process by which regional economies, societies, and cultures have become integrated through a global network of communication, transportation, and trade. The term is sometimes used to refer specifically to economic globalization: the integration of national economies into the international economy through trade, foreign (i.e., global finance, communications Communication is a process of transferring information from one entity to another. Communication processes are sign-mediated interactions between at least two agents which share a repertoire of signs and semiotic rules. Communication is commonly defined as "the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing,, and travel Travel is the movement of people between relatively distant geographical locations for any purpose and any duration, with or without any means of transport. Travel also includes relatively short stays between successive movements. Movements between locations requiring only a few minutes are not considered as travel. As an activity, "travel&). An attempt to define and categorize world cities by financial criteria was made by the Globalization and World Cities Study Group & Network (GaWC), based primarily at Loughborough University Loughborough University is a campus university located in the market town of Loughborough, Leicestershire, in the East Midlands of England in England. The study ranked cities based on their provision of "advanced producer services" such as accountancy Accountancy is the art of communicating financial information about a business entity to users such as shareholders and managers. The communication is generally in the financial´s form statements that show in money terms the economic resources under the control of management; the art lies in selecting the information that is relevant to the user, advertising Advertising is a form of communication intended to persuade an audience to purchase or take some action upon products, ideals, or services. It includes the name of a product or service and how that product or service could benefit the consumer, to persuade a target market to purchase or to consume that particular brand. These brands are usually, finance Finance is the science of funds management. The general areas of finance are business finance, personal finance, and public finance. Finance includes saving money and often includes lending money. The field of finance deals with the concepts of time, money, and risk and how they are interrelated. It also deals with how money is spent and budgeted and law Law is a system of rules, usually enforced through a set of institutions. Laws can shape or reflect politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a primary social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus ticket to trading on derivatives markets. Property law defines rights and. The Inventory identifies three levels of world cities and several sub-ranks (see World cities ranking A global city is a city deemed to be an important node point in the global economic system. The concept comes from geography and urban studies and rests on the idea that globalization can be understood as largely created, facilitated and enacted in strategic geographic locales according to a hierarchy of importance to the operation of the global).

A metropolis is not necessarily a global city—or, being one, it could not be among the top-ranking—due to its standards of living, development, and infrastructures.

Local definitions by country

Canada

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada is the Canadian federal government agency commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and culture. The bureau is commonly called StatCan or StatsCan although StatCan is the official abbreviation. It has regularly been considered the best statistical defines a census metropolitan area The census geographic units of Canada are the country subdivisions defined and used by Canada's federal government statistics bureau Statistics Canada to conduct the country's five-yearly census. They exist on four levels: the top-level divisions are Canada's provinces and territories; these are divided into second-level census divisions, which in as one or more adjacent municipalities situated around a major urban core where the urban core has a population of at least 100,000.^[1]

India

In the Republic of India, the Census Commission defines a metropolitan city as one having a population of over 4 million.^[2] 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, Bangalore 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, 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, 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 and 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" are the eight 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.

Italy

With the 2001 reform of the Title V of the Constitution of Italy, the Italian republic has provided for the institution of Aree Metropolitane. Aree Metropolitane will be instituted at least for the major conurbations of Rome Rome (English pronunciation: /ˈroʊm/; Italian: Roma listen , pronounced [ˈroːma]; Latin: Rōma) is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality (central area), with over 2.7 million residents in 1,285.3 km2 (496.3 sq mi). While the population of the urban area was estimated by Eurostat to have been 3.46, Milan Milan (Italian: Milano, listen Italian pronunciation: [miˈla(ː)no]; Western Lombard: Milan, listen (help·info)) is a city in Italy and the capital of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1,300,000, while the urban area is the first in Italy and the fifth largest in the European Union, Turin Turin (Italian: Torino, pronounced [toˈriːno] ; Piedmontese: Turin, pronounced [tyˈɾiŋ]) is a major city as well as a business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 (November 2008) while and Naples Naples (Italian: Napoli listen , pronounced [ˈna(ː)poli], Neapolitan: Napule) is a city in Italy; it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples. The city is known for its rich history, art, culture, architecture, music and gastronomy, playing an important role in the history of the Italian peninsula and beyond, but, as of January 2009^[update], it is yet unclear whether the Aree Metropolitane will replace Provinces, or just be added to the older administrative subdivisions.

Japan

The Japanese legal term to (都) is commonly translated as "metropolis".^[3] Structured like a prefecture The prefectures of Japan are the country's 47 subnational jurisdictions: one "metropolis" , Tokyo; one "circuit" (道 dō), Hokkaidō; two urban prefectures (府 fu), Osaka and Kyoto; and 43 other prefectures (県 ken). In Japanese, they are commonly referred to as todōfuken (都道府県?). Prefectures are governmental bodies instead of a normal city, there is only one to in Japan, namely 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. As of 2008^[update], Japan has 11 other cities Japan has many major cities. Many of these cities are crowded into a relatively small area of land along the Pacific coast of Honshū, between Tōkyō and Kōbe. This heavily urbanized strip is known as the Tōkaidō Megalopolis. It is named for the historic highway that connected the cities of Tōkyō and Kyōto, which has now been replaced by with populations greater than one million.

Poland

The Union of Polish Metropolises (Polish Polish is a West Slavic language and the official language of Poland. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet which corresponds basically to the Latin alphabet with a few additions. Polish-speakers use the language in a uniform manner throughout most of Poland: Unia Metropolii Polskich), established in 1990, is an organization uniting the largest cities in country. Presently twelve cities are members of the organization, of which 11 have more than a quarter million inhabitants. The largest metropolis in Poland, if ranked solely by the number of inhabitants, is Upper Silesian Metropolis with 2 million inhabitants (5 million inhabitants in the Silesian metropolitan area), followed by Warsaw Warsaw (Polish: Warszawa [varˈʂava] ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River roughly 360 kilometers (224 mi) from the Baltic Sea and 300 kilometers (186 mi) from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population as of June 2009 was estimated at 1,711,466, and the Warsaw metropolitan area at, with 1.7 million inhabitants in city proper, and 2.7 million in Warsaw metropolitan area. Upper Silesian Metropolis is an initiative of recent years, attempt to unite large 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/urban area An urban area is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets into one official urban organism.

United Kingdom

Various conurbations 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 in the United Kingdom are considered to be metropolitan areas (see Metropolitan county). The term Metropolis itself is rarely used. London is archaically referred to as "the Metropolis", which is only retained by the London police force, the Metropolitan Police Service. (The leader of the Met is formally known as the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis.)

United States

In the United States an incorporated area or group of areas having a population more than 50,000 is required to have a metropolitan planning organization in order to facilitate major infrastructure projects and to ensure financial solvency. Thus, a population of 50,000 or greater has been used as a de facto standard in the United States to define a metropolis. A similar definition is used by the United States Census Bureau. They define a metropolitan statistical area as at least one urbanized area of 50,000 or more inhabitants.

Metropolis as a mainland area

In France, Portugal and Spain, metropolis (métropole (Fr.) / metrópole (Port.) / metrópoli (Spa.)) designates the mainland part of a country near or on the European continent; in the case of France, this would mean France without its overseas departments; for Portugal and Spain during the Spanish Empire and Portuguese Empire period, it used to be common to designate Portugal or Spain except its colonies (the Ultramar). In France metropolis is also used to refer to large agglomerations.

See also

Other city types

• Global city
• Megacity
• Megalopolis

Lists

• List of metropolitan areas by population

Planning theories

• New Urbanism
• Smart growth
• Transit-oriented development

Other

• Ekistics
• Large Cities Climate Leadership Group
• Sustainable city
• World's largest cities
• Metropolis (film)
• Metropolis (manga)
• Metropolis (anime)
• Metropolis (comics)

Notes and references

1. ^ Geographic Units: Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) and Census Agglomeration (CA)
2. ^ Ahmedabad yet to become mega city
3. ^ "Local Government in Japan" (PDF). Council of Local Authorities for International Relations. pp. 41. http://www.jlgc.org/en/pdf/localg2006.PDF. Retrieved 2007-10-16.

• Allen J. Scott (ed.) Global City Regions: Trends, Theory, Policy, Oxford University Press (2001).
• Monti, Daniel J., Jr., The American City: A Social and Cultural History. Oxford, England and Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 1999. 391 pp. ISBN 978-1-55786-918-0.

External links

• U.S. Census Bureau: About Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistics
• Megalopolis, my Arcadia, a podcast with a worldwide analysis of megacities (focus Latin America)
• Geopolis: research group,university of Paris-Diderot, France

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