A metropolitan area or metro is a region consisting of a densely populated urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories; which share industries, commercial areas, transport network, infrastructure and housing.Squires, G. Ed. Urban Sprawl: Causes, Consequences, & Policy Responses. (The urban Institute Press (2002) A metropolitan area usually comprises multiple principal cities, jurisdictions and municipalities: neighborhoods, townships, boroughs, cities, towns, exurbs, suburbs, counties, districts and even states and nations in areas like the eurodistricts. As social, economic and political institutions have changed, metropolitan areas have become key economic and political regions.
Definition
A metropolitan area combines an urban agglomeration with the contiguous built-up areas, which are not necessarily urban in character but are 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, East Hampton, New York, on Long Island is considered part of the New York metropolitan area.
In 2020, the European Commission, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, the International Labour Organization, the OECD, and the World Bank have agreed on a common methodological framework for delimitation of urban and rural areas, which contains a definition of metropolitan areas called the Functional urban area. It is defined as a city and its commuting zone, which is a contiguous area of spatial units that have at least 15% of their employed residents working in the city.
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 areas should take this into account. The term metropolitan can also refer to a county-level municipal government structure, with some shared services between a central city and its suburbs, which may or may not include the entirety of a metropolitan area. Population figures given for one metro area can vary by millions.
There has been no significant change in the basic concept of metropolitan areas since its adoption in 1950, although significant changes in geographic distributions have occurred since then, and more are expected. 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 the surrounding suburban, exurban and sometimes rural areas, all of which the city is presumed to influence. A polycentric metropolitan area contains multiple urban agglomerations not connected by continuous development. In defining a metropolitan area, it is sufficient that a city or cities form a nucleus with which other areas have a high degree of integration.
A metropolitan area is commonly known and characterized by a high concentration in service sector labor and enterprises. Macroeconomics views metropolitan areas as trade regions of economic significance.
Since, presently, urban data are based on arbitrary definitions that vary from country to country and from year or census to the next, making them difficult to compare, an Urban Metric System (UMS) has been conceived that could correct the problem, since it allows computing the urban area limits and central points, and it can be applied in the same way to all past, present and future population and job distributions. It is based on vector field calculations obtained by assuming that, in a given space, all inhabitants and jobs exert the same attractive force A and repulsive force R. The net force (A - R) exerted by each inhabitant or job is given by [1/(1 + d)] - [1/( β + d/2)], where d = distance and β is the only parameter. UMS distinguishes the following types of urban areas, each type corresponding to a given value of β: +Urban areaDistance at which the attractive force = the repulsive force Value of β1Central city10 km62Agglomeration20 km113Metropolis40 km214Patropolis80 km415Megalopolis160 km816Urban system320 km1617Urban macrosystem640 km3218Continental system1,280 km6419Intercontinental system2,560 km1,28110World system5,120 km2,561
UMS has been applied to some Canadian cases since 2018, but the data presented in this article are still based on the various existing national definitions, which are disparate.
List of metropolitan areas South Africa
The Greater Johannesburg metropolitan area is the fourth largest metropolitan area in South Africa. Its population was over 9.6 million as of the 2011 South Africa Census, in contrast to its urban area, which consisted of approximately 7.9 million inhabitants as of 2011. Conversely, metropolitan municipalities in South Africa are defined as commonly governed areas of a metropolitan area. The largest such metropolitan municipal government entity in South Africa is the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, which presided over nearly 5 million people as of 2016. However, the Greater Johannesburg metropolitan area houses roughly ten times the population of its core municipal city of Johannesburg, which contained 957,441 people as of the 2011 census.
Asia
Bangladesh In Bangladesh, the large population centres which have significant financial, political and administrative importance are considered to be as Metropolitan cities, which are governed by City Corporations. In total, there are 12 city corporations in Bangladesh. 4 of them (Dhaka North City Corporation, Dhaka South City Corporation, Narayanganj City Corporation, Gazipur City Corporation) are part of Dhaka Metropolitan Area.
China In China, there used to be no clear distinction between megalopolis (, lit. city cluster) and metropolitan area () until National Development and Reform Commission issued Guidelines on the Cultivation and Development of Modern Metropolitan Areas () on February 19, 2019, in which a metropolitan area was defined as "an urbanized spatial form in a megalopolis dominated by (a) supercity(-ies) or megacity(-ies), or a large metropolis playing a leading part, and within the basic range of 1-hour commute area."
India
In India, a metropolitan city is defined as one with a population more than one million. In policing jurisdiction, state governments can declare any city or town with a population exceeding one million as a metropolitan area as per the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.
Indonesia
In Indonesia, the government of Indonesia defines a metropolitan area as an urban agglomeration where its spatial planning is prioritised due to its highly important influence on the country. Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung, Semarang, Medan, Makassar, Palembang are important metropolitan area in the country. Currently, there are 10 metropolitan cities in Indonesia that have been recognized by the government.
Japan
Metropolitan areas in Japan include the Greater Tokyo Area, formerly the most populous metropolitan area in the world.
Pakistan
Pakistan has nine metropolitan areas with populations greater than a million. Five of these are entirely in Punjab including Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Multan; one (Islamabad-Rawalpindi) is split between Punjab and the Islamabad Capital Territory; two are located in Sindh, including Karachi, the largest metropolitan area in the country, and Hyderabad; one in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: Peshawar; and the final in Balochistan: Quetta.
Philippines
The Philippines currently has three metropolitan areas defined by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA). These metropolitan areas are separated into three main geographical areas; Metro Manila (which is located in Luzon), Metro Cebu (which is located in Visayas), Metro Davao (which is located in Mindanao), and Greater Manila Area (which is the largest metropolitan area of Manila). The official definition of each area does not necessarily follow the actual extent of continuous urbanization. For example, the built-up area of Metro Manila has long spilled out of its officially defined borders into the adjacent provinces of Bulacan, Rizal, Laguna, and Cavite known as Greater Manila Area. The number of metropolitan areas in the Philippines was reduced from 13 in 2007 to the current three based from the 2017–2022 Philippine Development Plan by NEDA. The other 10 metropolitan areas were Metro Angeles, Metro Bacolod, Metro Baguio, Metro Batangas, Metro Cagayan de Oro, Metro Dagupan, Metro Iloilo–Guimaras, Metro Butuan, Metro Naga, and Metro Olongapo.
Turkey
The word metropolitan describes the central municipality governing local services in a province with more than 750.000 residents in Turkey, like Istanbul and its metropolitan municipality, the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality. There are 30 officially defined "metropolitan municipalities" in Turkey. This classification, however, is only used for administrative purposes, and sometimes contradicts the colloquial use of the term "metro area". As an example, Gebze, a district in Kocaeli province and thus in the jurisdiction of the Kocaeli Metropolitan Municipality, is arguably within the metro area of Istanbul with many of its residents commuting to Istanbul for work and the Marmaray, a commuter rail line, extending into the district. The district however, as previously mentioned, is not a part of Istanbul's provincial limits, and thus not subject to the jurisdiction of its metropolitan municipality. The word metropolitan (municipality) is generally only used as an administrative distinction in Turkey.
United Arab Emirates
Dubai-Sharjah-Ajman (DSA) is a metropolitan area in the United Arab Emirates. It consists of the combined, greater urban areas of Dubai, Ajman, and Sharjah. The urban areas at the northeast end of Dubai flow into those of Sharjah, which in turn are contiguous with those of Ajman. The total population is about 5.9 million people as of 2023
Europe
European Union
The European Union's statistical agency Eurostat, in partnership with OECD, has created a concept named functional urban area (FUA). The FUA represents an attempt at a harmonised definition of the metropolitan area, and the goal was to have an area from which a significant share of the residents commute into the city. The FUA consists of a city and its commuting zone, which is a contiguous area of spatial units that have at least 15% of their employed residents working in the city.
A further, derived concept is the typology of metropolitan regions. A NUTS 3 region (or a group thereof) is considered to be metropolitan, if at least 50% of its residents live inside a FUA with a population of 250,000 or more. NUTS 3 regions not meeting these criteria are considered to be non-metropolitan regions.
France
France's national statistics office, INSEE, names an urban core and its surrounding area of commuter influence an (AAV, literally meaning "catchment area of a city"), plural: aires d'attraction des villes. The official translation of this statistical area in English (as used by INSEE) is "functional area". The AAV follows the same definition as the Functional Urban Area (FUA) used by Eurostat and the OECD, and the AAVs are thus strictly comparable to the FUAs.
The AAV replaced in 2020 the metropolitan statistical area called aire urbaine (AU). The AU, which was defined differently than the AAV, has now been discarded by INSEE and replaced with the AAV in order to facilitate international comparisons.
Germany