Talk:Globalization and World Cities Research Network

It is an important classification of cities around the world. GaWC study. It is a very important classification for investors and the economy at the global level.
It is an important classification of cities around the world. The GaWC examines cities worldwide to narrow them down to a roster of 307 world cities, then ranks these based on their connectivity through four "advanced producer services": accountancy, advertising, banking/finance, and law. It is a very important classification for investors and the economy at the global level. --181.137.2.23 (talk) 23:15, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

It might be an important idea, but the study seems... wrong on many levels. Investors should not rely on this. E.g. the cities of Cologne, Dortmund, and Düsseldorf in Germany are all listed, and all in different categories, when they are in fact so near to each other that they can not be linked to different "economic states and regions". They are in the same region. To get from one downtown to the next you need an hour tops! Makes me doubt the rest of the entries, even if I don't know them all.77.182.159.28 (talk) 18:07, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

two cities need to be fixed
I'm pretty sure the Hamilton they're listing is Hamilton, Bermuda, since it's an important financial center. See the list at the bottom of this, for example: https://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/rb/rb157.html

And also Goiania links to the wrong Goiania, it should be the provincial Brazil capital, not a random small city. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:401:500:60BF:7C83:9864:5F55:3452 (talk) 04:06, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Santa Cruz
I changed Santa Cruz from USA to Bolivia. Although I don't have proof, I find it very unlikely it would be referring to the city in California, since only 6 other Californian cities are listed (Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, San Jose, Sacramento and Palo Alto) and there are many other cities in the state that are larger and more prominent than Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz, Bolivia is the country's largest city and would be the second city listed after La Paz. Hypertall (talk) 20:25, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
 * thank you for looking at this! That sounds quite likely, but I think I will email the list's creators to just to confirm that (along with the identity of "Hamilton" as mentioned in the previous section.—Neil P. Quinn (talk) 19:03, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Ambiguous names
I just emailed Ben Derudder, one of the authors of the GaWC classification, to confirm the identities of three ambiguous cities in the 2018 classification (all in the Sufficiency tier). He confirmed that: I'm happy to forward the email to anyone who interested; just let me know! Props to Hypertall, 2601:401:500:60BF:7C83:9864:5F55:3452, and 68.61.249.255, who pointed out that these cities were probably misidentified :)—Neil P. Quinn (talk) 07:10, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
 * "Hamilton" is Hamilton, Bermuda
 * "Santa Cruz" is Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia
 * "Cordoba" is Córdoba, Argentina

The cities in each category should not be sorted by alphabet
The cities in each category is listed by its own score, so should not be sorted by alphabet.

see: https://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/world2018t.html

--BE.Tenner (talk) 07:50, 26 August 2019 (UTC)


 * That's a much better idea than alphabetical order! 5.53.149.180 (talk) 14:11, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
 * GAWC does not provide the score for each city. Kazuha1029 (talk) 18:09, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Shouldn't it be a table, so you can sort on alpha beta gamma, OR alphabetically, OR per country ... 37.24.71.28 (talk) 20:59, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Islamabad is miscategorized
According to https://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/world2018t.html, Islamabad is Gamma in 2018, but this list has it as Beta minus. Arrataz (talk) 19:29, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅ Already fixed by some editor Alexcalamaro (talk) 04:25, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Incorrect order
Some cities are not in the correct order. DavidLee200 (talk) 21:27, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Removal of 1998 Cities
I'm going to remove them if no objections. The research is updated every two years, 1998 is so outdated that it provides absolutely no value.Jjj84206 (talk) 21:50, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Removal of 2018 cities
Should we remove 2018 list as 2020 comes out a month ago. DavidLee200 (talk) 06:35, 24 September 2020 (UTC)


 * I think we can remove 2018 since we've tracked the rating movements from 2018 to 2020. However, we should only do that after the 2020 list is confirmed to be accurate and complete. I notice that you're editing this in your sandbox, would you be making future updates to the list? I'm not sure if the current list is complete. Thanks for your efforts. For now I'll remove 1998. Also, it might be a smart idea to request for page protect due to the frequent vandalisms to promote Brazilian cities.Jjj84206 (talk) 23:32, 24 September 2020 (UTC)


 * I compared it with this source and the change seems to be accurate, I think we may remove the 2018 list now? --Ondrusj (talk) 19:23, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Alpha++ ?
How can be considered Alpha++ cities such as London - where waste recycling is basically non-existent, home rental is managed by mafias, most of underground rail stations are not accessible to people with disabilities - and New York - a city immersed in road-traffic, 24h-long noise and food/garbage/whatever stink ? AlexanderFreud (talk) 19:07, 31 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Please keep personal opinion out of Wikipedia. This article is cited directly from GAWC study - you have a problem with it, you can email GAWC and question their research. I would say though, the problems you just described is common in many global cities around the world, likely more so in the lower-ranked cities.Kazuha1029 (talk) 22:27, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
 * and say a little about the GAWC criteria and  is detailed. It's an indicator of integration into the World economy, not living conditions. Anyway, we just report the GAWC classification and don't make our own. That would be against No original research. PrimeHunter (talk) 07:19, 1 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I know is not Wikipedia "fault". Thanks, I had a look to the website; it is a usual media made by colonisers to show-off their power such as "Il Sole 24 Ore" magazine from Milan; luckily most of people are acknowledged that colonisers regions are able to have their power ('power' is used by such colonisers areas in terms of strong-currency money not in terms of food, water, energy or any other resources) only thanks to colonised regions of the world/country. To divide cities in Alpha, Beta et cetera is a form of betraying cities dignity and Wikipedia, which is under no 'big powers', should try to be respectful of cities dignity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AlexanderFreud (talk • contribs) 10:54, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
 * If a topic satisfies Notability then it can have an article. Wikipedia is not censored. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:12, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Like said - keep your personal opinion out of here, you have a problem with GAWC then you can email them. Kazuha1029 (talk) 03:34, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Use of sub-national flags?
I noticed that there are flags beside each city, and in every case it's a national flag, except for Hong Kong, which is a subnational flag. Should we only use national flags or include subnational flags (like state or province flags, like Hong Kong). I think it is important to be consistent, if we are to have flags at all. So either only national or only subnational flags, not a random mix. I would recommend just national flags. Mattximus (talk) 19:56, 22 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Oppose See your talk page. The fact you targeted only HKG but left MAC alone leads me to believe you are politically motivated. There is no consistency issue as we are using SAR flags and that's what's being flown in China as well. Hong Kong is NOT a province, it is a SAR, if you don't know what that is please look it up. This is very different from provinces like Ontario, California, Texas...etc, so your comparison is completely irrelevant. I would also mention this flag usage have been used since this page's inception - until you come in and say that's somehow not appropriate. There is no consistency issue here. GAWC is not about politics, it simply gives the city a score and that's precisely why it never cited the nation in which it belongs (and that actually causes a lot of problems for us editors. As many cities have the same names). Kazuha1029 (talk) 20:07, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I changed HKG to HKG-CHN, guess what, it's the same flag. I believe this now settles your complain. Thank you for your contribution. Kazuha1029 (talk) Kazuha1029 (talk) 20:14, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Removing section “Climate edition cities”
Sorry, I should’ve explained myself better. I didn’t say the section was inconsistent with the rest of the article, I said it was unrelated. And it is, unrelated and irrelevant. It’s simply saying that the cities listed below were “acknowledged” by GaWC, despite not being included in the classification talked about in the article, by including them in some other report it talks nothing about. I really don’t think we should mention every city whose existence is recognized by GaWC. I’m removing it again.

The inconsistency I was referring to was in the section “No longer classified”. In every section the cities are grouped in columns with width=13em, except in that one where it was 10em. It’s not a big deal, it just looks weird with all the columns aligned except those. Brainiac242 (talk) 07:38, 27 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Ok fair enough. I don’t see the harm of acknowledging the large cities that were not on the list before in different list but that’s just me. Jhenderson  7 7 7  18:51, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

2022 GaWC City Classifications
In a Twitter post, GaWC posted the data for the 2022 city classifications. I could not find the 2022 city classifications on the official website, but perhaps we can consider updating the rankings according to the 2022 rankings posted. It has been since August 30, 2023 that the rankings were posted, and the 2020 rankings might be a bit out of date. ThatOneCuriousFellow (talk) 20:47, 8 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Maybe we can email them, see if they can post a link to it before we use Twitter as a source.Kazuha1029 (talk) 04:28, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Please update me if you get a reply, thank you! 172.103.241.187 (talk) 10:35, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I never emailed, but here's one of the main researchers if you wish to contact them The rest of the team can be found here  Kazuha1029 (talk) 17:01, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

EU Flags?
What is the reason that we suddenly start showing EU flags? Kazuha1029 (talk) 02:42, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree, there is no reason; it just makes it more bloaty.  The Blue  Rider  Postal horn icon.svg 16:12, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Kazuha1029 (talk) 02:49, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
 * As the person that added them, I disagree. It's becoming more common to show the EU flag side by side with the member state's flags, because of the importance of the EU at a global stage. It makes it easier to compare it to the big countries like the US, China, etc. | Petnog (talk) 08:23, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
 * No, it is not standard practice to show EU flags which is why editors are confused at your edits. No doubt EU is important but it is redundant to show EU flags in addition to country flag. Whether a city is classified on the list has nothing to do with whether they are an EU country or not.Kazuha1029 (talk) 17:06, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
 * That's simply not true. Do you think Prague would be an Alpha- city if they weren't in the EU? | Petnog (talk) 07:58, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * You can go ahead and argue with GaWC. Kazuha1029 (talk) 19:51, 9 June 2024 (UTC)