A primate city [1] is a city that is the largest in its country, province, state, or region, and disproportionately larger than any others in the urban hierarchy. [2] A primate city distribution is a rank-size distribution that has one very large city with many much smaller cities and towns and no intermediate-sized urban centers, creating a statistical king effect. [3]
The law of the primate city was first proposed by the geographer Mark Jefferson in 1939. [4] He defines a primate city as being "at least twice as large as the next largest city and more than twice as significant." [5] Aside from size and population, a primate city will usually have precedence in all other aspects of its country's society such as economics, politics, culture, and education. Primate cities also serve as targets for the majority of a country or region's internal migration.
In geography, the phenomenon of excessive concentration of population and development of the main city of a country or a region (often to the detriment of other areas) is called urban primacy or urban macrocephaly. [6]
Urban primacy can be measured as the share of a country's population that lives in the primate city. [7] Relative primacy indicates the ratio of the primate city's population to that of the second largest in a country or region. [8]
There is debate as to whether a primate city serves a parasitic or generative function. [9] The presence of a primate city in a country may indicate an imbalance in development—usually a progressive core and a lagging periphery—on which the city depends for labor and other resources. [10] However, the urban structure is not directly dependent on a country's level of economic development. [2]
Many primate cities gain an increasing share of their country's population. This can be due to a reduction in blue-collar population in the hinterlands because of mechanization and automation. Simultaneously, the number of educated employees in white-collar endeavors such as politics, finance, media, and higher education rises. These sectors are clustered predominantly in primate cities where power and wealth are concentrated.[ citation needed ]
Some global cities are considered national or regional primate cities. [5] [11] An example of a global city that is also a primate city is Istanbul in Turkey. Istanbul serves as the primate city of Turkey due to the unmatched economic, political, cultural, and educational influence that the city possesses in comparison to other Turkish cities such as the capital Ankara, İzmir, or Bursa. Mexico City, Paris, Cairo, Jakarta, and Seoul have also been described as primate cities of their respective countries. [12] However, not all regions and countries possess a primate city. The United States has never had a primate city on a national level due to the decentralized nature of the country and because the country's second-largest city, Los Angeles, is not far behind the country's largest city, New York City, in either population or GDP. The metropolitan area of New York City has over 19 million residents, while that of Los Angeles has roughly 13 million residents, as of 2022. [13]
Sub-national divisions can also have primate cities. For instance, New York City is New York State's primate city, because its population is 32 times bigger than the state's second-largest city of Buffalo. New York City has 44% of the population and 65% of the GDP of New York State. [14] The city of Anchorage is another U.S. example, with around 40% of the total population of Alaska living within the city's limits. China does not have a primate city at a national level, but several provincial capitals are disproportionately larger than other urban areas in the respective provinces. For example, Henan, Hubei, and Sichuan have provincial capitals (Zhengzhou, Wuhan, and Chengdu, respectively) that are significantly larger than the second-largest cities in those provinces, and each of those provinces has a population similar to that of a large European country. India does not have a primate city, as Delhi is not much larger than Mumbai or Kolkata in terms of population. However, many Indian states, such as Karnataka, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, do have primate cities: Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, respectively. Other Indian states, such as Uttar Pradesh and Kerala, do not have any primate cities. [15]
Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, has been called "the most primate city on Earth": in 2000 it was 40 times larger than the second-largest city of that time, Nakhon Ratchasima. [16] As of 2022, Bangkok is nearly nine times larger than Thailand's current second-largest city of Chiang Mai, which has been growing in population and has also had its boundaries expanded to reflect that growth. [17] [18] Taking the concept from his examination of the primate city during the 2010 Thai political protests and applying it to the role that primate cities play if they are national capitals, researcher Jack Fong noted that when primate cities like Bangkok function as national capitals, they are inherently vulnerable to insurrection by the military and the dispossessed. He cites the fact that most primate cities serving as national capitals contain major headquarters for the country. Thus, logistically, it is rather "efficient" to target a national capital that is also a primate city; most of the governing power is contained in that one small area, and so are most of the people. [19]
The metropolitan area of the city of Moscow, the capital of Russia, is 2.3 times the size of the metropolitan area of the next largest city, Saint Petersburg, [20] [21] and plays a unique and uncontested role of the cultural and political center of the country. [22] It can therefore be considered a primate city.
Primate cities need not be capital cities: governments may establish a new capital city in an attempt to challenge the primacy of the largest city or provide more balanced growth. For example, in Tanzania, Dar es Salaam is still the primate city even though the capital was moved to Dodoma, a new city built to a plan, in 1996. A similar process (though without building a planned city) occurred when the existing city of Wellington was chosen as New Zealand's capital in 1865; Auckland, the capital before the relocation, commanded (and still commands) a greater share of the population and economy.
This section needs additional citations for verification .(August 2024) |
Country | Primate | Population | Second largest | Population | Relative primacy |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ethiopia | Addis Ababa | 3,352,000 | Adama | 342,940 | 9.8 |
Algeria | Algiers | 7,896,923 | Oran | 1,560,329 | 5.1 |
Madagascar | Antananarivo | 1,275,207 | Toamasina | 300,813 | 4.2 |
Eritrea | Asmara | 650,000 | Keren | 82,198 | 7.9 |
Somalia | Mogadishu | 2,726,815 | Hargeisa [23] | 1,200,000 | 2.3 |
Mali | Bamako | 1,810,366 | Sikasso | 226,618 | 8.0 |
Central African Republic | Bangui | 622,771 | Bimbo | 124,176 | 5.0 |
Gambia | Banjul-Serekunda area | 519,835 [24] | Brikama | 101,119 [24] | 5.1 |
Guinea-Bissau | Bissau | 492,004 | Gabu | 48,670 | 10.1 |
Egypt | Cairo [25] | 22,183,000 | Alexandria | 6,100,000 | 3.6 |
Guinea | Conakry [26] | 1,660,973 | Nzérékoré | 195,027 | 8.5 |
Senegal | Dakar [26] | 2,646,503 | Touba | 753,315 | 3.5 |
Tanzania | Dar es Salaam | 5,383,728 | Mwanza | 1,104,521 | 4.9 |
Djibouti | Djibouti City | 475,322 | Ali Sabieh | 37,939 | 12.5 |
Sierra Leone | Freetown [26] | 1,500,234 | Bo | 233,684 | 6.4 |
Uganda | Kampala | 1,507,080 | Nansana | 365,124 | 4.1 |
Rwanda | Kigali | 1,132,686 | Butare | 89,600 | 12.6 |
Democratic Republic of the Congo | Kinshasa | 17,239,463 | Mbuji-Mayi | 2,643,000 | 7.3 |
Nigeria | Lagos [27] | 16,637,000 | Kano | 4,490,734 | 3.7 |
Gabon | Libreville | 703,904 | Port Gentil | 136,462 | 5.2 |
Togo | Lomé | 1,477,660 | Sokodé | 118,000 | 12.5 |
Angola | Luanda [26] | 8,069,612 | Lubango | 903,564 | 8.9 |
Zambia | Lusaka | 2,238,569 | Kitwe | 522,092 | 4.3 |
Lesotho | Maseru | 330,760 | Teyateyaneng | 75,115 | 4.4 |
Liberia | Monrovia | 1,101,970 | Ganta | 41,106 | 26.8 |
Kenya | Nairobi | 4,734,881 | Mombasa | 1,208,333 | 3.9 |
Chad | N'Djamena | 1,605,696 | Moundou | 137,929 | 11.6 |
Niger | Niamey | 1,243,500 | Zinder | 235,605 | 5.3 |
Mauritania | Nouakchott | 958,399 | Nouadhibou | 118,167 | 8.1 |
Sudan | Omdurman-Khartoum area | 5,490,000 | Port Sudan | 489,725 | 11.2 |
Burkina Faso | Ouagadougou | 2,500,000 | Bobo Dioulaso | 537,728 | 4.6 |
São Tomé and Príncipe | São Tomé | 71,868 | Santo Amaro | 8,239 | 8.7 |
Tunisia | Tunis | 2,643,695 | Sfax | 330,440 | 8.0 |
Seychelles | Victoria | 26,450 | Anse Boileau | 4,093 | 6.5 |
Namibia | Windhoek | 325,858 | Walvis Bay | 62,096 | 5.2 |
Country | Primate | Population | Second largest | Population | Relative primacy |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Jordan | Amman | 4,425,000 | Irbid | 750,000 | 5.9 |
Turkmenistan | Ashgabat | 1,168,000 | Türkmenabat | 253,000 | 4.6 |
Iraq | Baghdad | 8,126,755 | Mosul | 1,792,000 | 4.5 |
Azerbaijan | Baku | 2,934,000 | Ganja | 335,000 | 8.8 |
Brunei | Bandar Seri Begawan | 280,000 | Kuala Belait | 70,000 | 4.0 |
Thailand | Bangkok [28] | 16,255,900 [Note 1] | Chiang Mai [29] | 1,213,000 | 13.4 |
Lebanon | Beirut [26] | 2,781,000 | Tripoli | 365,000 | 7.6 |
Kyrgyzstan | Bishkek [26] | 1,297,000 | Osh | 282,000 | 4.6 |
Sri Lanka | Colombo | 5,648,000 | Kandy | 125,400 | 45.0 |
Bangladesh | Dhaka | 22,478,116 | Chittagong | 5,252,842 | 4.3 |
Timor-Leste | Dili | 235,000 | Baucau | 15,000 | 15.7 |
Tajikistan | Dushanbe | 1,390,000 | Khujand | 182,000 | 7.6 |
Palestine | Gaza City | 766,331 | Hebron | 308,750 | 2.5 |
Turkey | Istanbul [30] | 15,569,856 | Ankara [31] | 5,187,949 | 3.0 |
Indonesia | Jakarta | 32,594,159 | Surabaya | 9,958,656 | 3.2 |
Afghanistan | Kabul [26] | 4,834,000 | Kandahar | 570,000 | 8.5 |
Nepal | Kathmandu | 3,941,000 | Pokhara | 523,000 | 9.8 |
Malaysia | Kuala Lumpur | 9,085,737 | George Town | 2,815,278 | 3.2 |
Kuwait | Kuwait City [26] | 4,022,000 | Al Jahra | 400,000 | 10.1 |
Maldives | Malé | 135,000 | Addu City | 34,000 | 4.0 |
Philippines | Metro Manila | 13,484,000 | Metro Cebu | 3,166,000 | 4.3 |
Oman | Muscat | 1,205,000 | Salalah | 340,000 | 3.5 |
Cambodia | Phnom Penh [26] | 2,177,000 | Siem Reap | 140,000 | 15.6 |
North Korea | Pyongyang | 2,228,000 | Hamhung | 535,000 | 4.2 |
South Korea | Seoul | 25,926,000 | Busan | 3,468,000 | 7.5 |
Uzbekistan | Tashkent | 3,492,000 | Samarkand | 1,201,000 | 2.9 |
Georgia | Tbilisi | 1,207,000 | Batumi | 200,000 | 6.0 |
Iran | Tehran | 13,633,000 | Mashhad | 3,167,000 | 4.3 |
Israel | Tel Aviv [32] | 4,054,570 [Note 2] | Jerusalem | 1,075,800 [Note 3] | 3.77 |
Bhutan | Thimphu | 115,000 | Phuntsholing | 28,000 | 4.1 |
Japan | Tokyo | 37,274,000 | Keihanshin (Osaka) | 19,060,000 | 2 |
Laos | Vientiane | 1,058,000 | Savannakhet | 120,000 | 8.8 |
Mongolia | Ulaanbaatar [26] | 1,508,000 | Erdenet | 100,000 | 15.1 |
Myanmar | Yangon [33] | 7,360,703 | Mandalay | 1,726,889 | 4.3 |
Armenia | Yerevan [26] | 1,403,000 | Gyumri | 130,000 | 10.8 |
For the Philippines, figures are for Metro Manila and Metro Cebu. Manila is the national capital, which is within Metro Manila, a region. Meanwhile, Cebu City is the capital city of the province of Cebu, with Metro Cebu being its main urban center. Metro Manila is within Mega Manila, the megapolis that has a population of around 25 million.
For Malaysia, data for Kuala Lumpur includes the surrounding state of Selangor and the Federal Territory of Putrajaya; while data for George Town includes the entire State of Penang and adjoining regions of Kulim and Kuala Muda (Sungai Petani) in the neighbouring State of Kedah.
Country | Primate | Population | Second largest | Population | Relative primacy |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Greece | Athens [26] [34] | 3,753,783 | Thessaloniki | 1,084,001 | 3.5 |
Serbia | Belgrade | 1,659,440 | Novi Sad | 341,625 | 4.9 |
Romania | Bucharest | 2,272,163 | Cluj-Napoca | 411,379 | 5.5 |
Hungary | Budapest [35] | 3,303,786 | Debrecen | 237,888 | 13.9 |
Moldova | Chișinău | 736,100 | Tiraspol (de jure) [Note 4] | 135,700 | 5.4 |
Denmark | Copenhagen [34] [35] | 2,016,285 | Aarhus | 330,639 | 6.1 |
Ireland | Dublin [26] [35] | 1,904,806 | Cork | 399,216 | 4.8 |
Finland | Helsinki | 1,522,694 | Tampere | 385,610 | 3.9 |
Ukraine | Kyiv [36] | 2,952,301 | Kharkiv | 1,421,125 | 2.1 |
United Kingdom | London [37] [35] | 14,257,962 | Birmingham | 3,683,000 | 3.9 |
Luxembourg | Luxembourg | 107,247 | Esch-sur-Alzette | 32,600 | 3.3 |
Spain | Madrid | 3,416,771 | Barcelona | 1,702,547 | 2.0 |
Belarus | Minsk | 2,101,018 | Gomel | 526,872 | 4.0 |
Norway | Oslo [34] | 1,546,706 | Bergen | 414,863 | 2.5 |
France | Paris [34] [38] [37] [35] | 12,405,426 | Lyon | 2,237,676 | 5.5 |
Iceland | Reykjavík | 209,680 [Note 5] | Akureyri | 18,191 | 11.5 |
Latvia | Riga [26] [34] | 605,273 | Daugavpils | 77,779 | 7.6 |
North Macedonia | Skopje | 506,926 [Note 6] | Bitola | 105,644 | 4.8 |
Bulgaria | Sofia | 1,681,666 | Plovdiv | 544,628 | 3.1 |
Sweden | Stockholm [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] | 2,415,139 [Note 7] | Gothenburg | 1,080,980 | 2.2 |
Estonia | Tallinn | 437,619 | Tartu | 95,009 | 4.6 |
Albania | Tirana | 800,986 | Durrës | 201,110 | 4.0 |
Austria | Vienna [26] [38] [35] | 2,600,000 | Graz | 302,660 | 8.6 |
Croatia | Zagreb | 1,113,111 | Split | 349,314 | 3.2 |
Czech Republic | Prague | 2,709,418 | Brno | 696,413 | 3.9 |
In Germany, Munich (city proper population ca 1.5 million, with surrounding Landkreise ~3 million) is the primate city of the state of Bavaria, having nearly three times the population than the state's second largest, Nuremberg (ca 500,000 people, metro area ~1.35 million). Likewise, in Hesse, Frankfurt (~750,000 people) is nearly three times larger than the state's second largest, Wiesbaden (~275,000) and they are both part of the Rhine-Main metropolitan area, the largest city outside of the area, Kassel, has a population of ca. 200,000 people. [44]
In Italy, primate cities exist at regional level: capital Rome (~2.7 million) alone has nearly half of the population of the Lazio region and is about 21 times larger than the second largest city Latina, and nearly three quarters of the region's population live in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital. In Lombardy, Milan at ~1.35 million is seven times larger than second largest Brescia (ca 200,000); in Piedmont, Turin has eight-nine times the population of Novara and Alessandria; in Campania, Naples has 7 times the population of second-largest Salerno and in Liguria, Genoa at ~550,000 has six times the population of second largest La Spezia and the Metropolitan City of Genoa has three times the population of Province of Savona. [45]
There are many more regional primate cities in Europe. If excluding national capitals, examples include Gothenburg in Västra Götaland, Sweden, Bergen in Vestland and Trondheim, Trøndelag in Norway, Tampere in Pirkanmaa, Finland and Aarhus in Midtjylland, Denmark.
In Portugal, the Lisbon Metropolitan Area has around 2.8 million people while the Porto Metropolitan Area, the second biggest and other only official metropolitan area, has around 1.7 million people. These two metropolitan areas have around 40% the country's population and are multiple times larger than the third-biggest city, Braga.
Although Belize does not have a primate city, Belize City is more than twice the size of San Ignacio, the country's second-largest city and urban area. Belize City is also the cultural and economic centre of Belize. The country's capital is Belmopan, the third-largest city in Belize.
In the United States, many primate cities exist at the state level. In California, the population of Los Angeles (~4 million) is nearly three times that of the second-largest city in the state, San Diego. Likewise, in Illinois, Chicago has 15 times the population of the state's second-largest city, Aurora, which itself is a suburb of Chicago, and 18 times the population of Rockford, the state's fifth-largest city and the largest outside of the Chicago metropolitan area, which comprises nearly two-thirds of the state's population. In New York, New York City, with a 2022 population of about 8.3 million, is more than 30 times larger than the state's second-largest city of Buffalo. Erie County, where Buffalo is located, is the eighth-largest county in the state and the largest outside of the New York metropolitan area, with around 950,000 residents; on the other hand, New York City alone contains four of the six largest counties in the state, each with at least 1.35 million residents. [46]
Canada also has several primate cities at the provincial level: Vancouver, BC; Winnipeg, MB; Toronto, ON; Montreal QC; Halifax, NS; and St. John's, NL.
Country | Primate | Population | Second largest | Population | Relative primacy |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Samoa | Apia | 36,735 | Afega | 1,781 | 20.6 |
Tuvalu | Funafuti | 6,025 | Asau | 650 | 9.3 |
Solomon Islands | Honiara | 64,609 | Auki | 7,785 | 8.3 |
Tonga | Nukuʻalofa | 24,571 | Neiafu (Vavaʻu) | 6,000 | 4.1 |
Papua New Guinea | Port Moresby | 410,954 | Lae | 76,255 | 5.4 |
Fiji | Suva | 175,399 | Lautoka | 52,220 | 3.4 |
Kiribati | South Tarawa | 50,182 | Abaiang | 5,502 | 9.1 |
New Zealand | Auckland | 1,715,600 | Christchurch | 381,500 | 4.5 |
Australia does not have a primate city, but at the state level, each of the capital cities of the states and territories act as the primate city of that state or territory.
Country | Primate | Population | Second largest | Population | Relative primacy |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Colombia | Bogotá | 10,700,000 | Medellín | 3,591,963 | 3.0 |
Paraguay | Gran Asunción [26] | 2,698,401 | Ciudad del Este | 293,817 | 9.2 |
Argentina | Buenos Aires [37] [35] | 12,741,364 | Córdoba | 1,528,000 | 8.3 |
Guyana | Georgetown | 118,363 | Linden | 29,298 | 4.0 |
Peru | Lima [35] | 9,752,000 | Arequipa | 1,034,736 | 9.4 |
Uruguay | Montevideo [26] [35] | 1,947,604 | Salto | 104,028 | 18.7 |
Suriname | Paramaribo | 240,924 | Lelydorp | 19,910 | 12.1 |
Chile | Santiago [26] | 6,685,685 | Valparaíso | 1,036,127 | 6.5 |
This list only includes cities that the breakaway state controls.
Country | Primate | Population | Second largest | Population | Relative primacy |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
South Ossetia | Tskhinvali | 32,180 | Kvaisa | 2,264 | 14.2 |
Transnistria | Tiraspol | 133,807 | Rîbnița | 47,949 | 2.8 |
Abkhazia | Sukhumi | 65,439 | Gudauta | 8,514 | 7.8 |
An independent city or independent town is a city or town that does not form part of another general-purpose local government entity.
A megacity is a very large city, typically with a population of more than 10 million people. The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs in its 2018 "World Urbanization Prospects" report defines megacities as urban agglomerations with over 10 million inhabitants. A University of Bonn report holds that they are "usually defined as metropolitan areas with a total population of 10 million or more people". Elsewhere in other sources, from five to eight million is considered the minimum threshold, along with a population density of at least 2,000 per square kilometre. The terms conurbation, metropolis, and metroplex are also applied to the latter.
Bangkok, officially known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies 1,568.7 square kilometres (605.7 sq mi) in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estimated population of 9.0 million as of 2021, 13% of the country's population. Over 17.4 million people (25%) live within the surrounding Bangkok Metropolitan Region as of the 2021 estimate, making Bangkok a megacity and an extreme primate city, dwarfing Thailand's other urban centres in both size and importance to the national economy.
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, infrastructures and housing. 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.
Urban secession is a city's secession from its surrounding region to form a new political unit.
A conurbation is a region comprising a number of metropolises, cities, large towns, and other urban areas which, through population growth and physical expansion, have merged to form one continuous urban or industrially developed area. In most cases, a conurbation is a polycentric urbanised area in which transportation has developed to link areas. They create a single urban labour market or travel to work area.
An urban area is a human settlement with a high population density and an infrastructure of built environment. This is the core of a metropolitan statistical area in the United States, if it contains a population of more than 50,000.
The Bangkok Metropolitan Region (BMR), may refer to a government-defined "political definition" of the urban region surrounding the metropolis of Bangkok, or the built-up area, i.e., urban agglomeration of Bangkok, Thailand, which varies in size and shape, and gets filled in as development expands.
A city proper is the geographical area contained within city limits. The term proper is not exclusive to cities; it can describe the geographical area within the boundaries of any given locality. The United Nations defines the term as "... the single political jurisdiction which contains the historical city centre."
The second city of the United Kingdom is typically held to be either Birmingham or Manchester, between which the title is disputed. The title is unofficial and cultural and is often debated in the popular press between Birmingham, Manchester, and other candidates.
The urban hierarchy ranks each city based on the size of population residing within the nationally defined statistical urban area. Because urban population depends on how governments define their metropolitan areas, urban hierarchies are conventionally ranked at the national level; however, the ranking can be extended globally to include all cities. Urban hierarchies tell us about the general organization of cities and yield some important insights. First, it tells us that within a system of cities, some cities will grow to be very large, but that number will be small relative to the universe of cities. Second, it refutes the expectation of an optimally sized city. Lastly, it establishes cities as belonging to an inter-related network where one city's growth affects others'.
A metropolis is a large city or conurbation which is a significant economic, political, and cultural area for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections, commerce, and communications.
Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Capital Area, encompassing Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's sixth largest metropolitan economy in 2022, trailing behind Paris, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Tokyo, and New York, and hosts more than half of South Korea's population. Although Seoul's population peaked at over 10 million, it has gradually decreased since 2014, standing at about 9.6 million residents as of 2024. Seoul is the seat of the South Korean government.
What is available and what is utilized in all studies other than Wheaton and Shishido [67] is some measure of urban primacy—here measured as the share of the largest city in national urban population.
In Denmark the less-than-a-million capital, Copenhagen, has won greater relative primacy. It is nine times as large as Denmark's second town.