After defining the concept of metropolization, the author discusses the demographic, functional and development-policy dimensions and the historical context of metropolization in China and India. Economic primacy of metropolitan cities in these countries. (DÜI-Sen)

This article examines the relationship between institutional fragmentation and the spatial extent of cities in Europe’s Functional Urban Areas. European Union planning regulations vary across member states, but in most cases, local authorities determine land use within the more general...

Urban areas represent an important part of the national economy and feature higher GDP per capita and productivity levels than their country’s average. But they also harbour large pockets of unemployment and poverty and suffer from problems such as congestion, pollution and crime. This book...

The chapter discusses whether largest cities share common geographic attributes, as opposed to urban localities of smaller size. As the study reveals, the largest cities of countries are rarely places of geographic extremes; they are seldom found at high elevations, far away from the seashore,...