Talk:Urban area

Globalization
Someone tagged this section as not representing a worldwide view. Though only four countries are described here, the contributers of this article seemingly have done a good job at globalizing. These four countries are well spread around the world, and do describe various standards used for the definition of an urban area. This section is only waiting the addition of more countries, when just the right experts come along. Shaliya waya (talk) 14:46, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

==For the other countries I don't know, but it seemed to me that France's "aire urbaine" was not described well. It is not a similar term to the metropolitan area used by North America. The INSEE and ING (the Geographical Institute) also use a term of continuing buildings to define urban area, if I remember correctly, but I have to check, because it might be for the city--something like there is supposed to be a continuation of buildings and buildings shouldn't be more than 250meters away.

Because if you take only the definition you have here, then border cities such as Lille or Strasbourg should also include inhabitants from the other side of the border--in fact it is the way the taxed services and museum administration are already distributed in Strasbourg, couting the city of Kehl in an Euro-district.

But if you take the distance into account, then Kehl shouldn't be counted in the urban area of Strasbourg, but then most american cities would only be half the population they are now. I'm taking the example of Syracuse, NY, for instance. Cicero and Oswego are counted in the metropolitan area of Syracuse, but Cicero, for example is something like more than 30 miles from the city limits. On the other hand, East Syracuse isn't counted to be in Syracuse-city, but there is no discontinued empty places from Syracuse to East Syracuse.

Anyone know if there is an international rule?

Anne-Caroline Sieffert —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.230.56.132 (talk) 14:33, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * For sure the term "urban area" has many definitions through many countries. The EU and UN are promoting the "250 metre" standard for measuring urbanisation, and many countries have accepted it, including France and more recently England. Yet not all follow to date - which makes articles such as this seem original research if they are not sourced properly from a single source (single definition) with complete explanations.


 * There has been some confusion on Wiki as far as France is concerned - Urbanisation is a big issue here (Paris is on the point of annexing some of its suburbs), and a few suburban contributors have become endeared to the idea of living in the "Paris metropolitan area" - a term which may be fine as a vague description for foreigners, but as a "translation" for aire urbaine it is quite un-factual and incorrect - the existing official translation provided by the INSEE itself is "urban area". This problem is practically no more in Paris-based articles, but some clarification could help.


 * I would be careful in "comparing" any two urban areas because of the term's many definitions; if a mainstream organisation hasn't already compiled a study to this end, I don't see how any Wikipedia article can attempt to do so without being slapped with an original research tag. Cheers. THE PROMENADER  07:35, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

New York City: the article describes the population of the city proper, and then, confusingly, the metro area. This article is about urban areas, not metro areas, so why is the metro population mentioned and the urban area (which differs from the city proper's population)not mentioned? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.21.234.252 (talk) 10:03, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

The urban areas pic
Just missing or seemingly not considered "important" is Phoenix, Arizona, with a city pop of 1.5 mil and 4+ mil metro, likely to approach the size of LA when the agricultural areas linking Phoenix and Tuscon slowly become urban. Yet, it's not a dot on that map. Just thought I'd point it out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.231.72.139 (talk) 22:41, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

To add to the previous person stating about Phoenix, what's wrong with Germany in the picture, it only has 4 cities with population over 1 million, but the map makes it look like there is 100 of them, also Ukraine has at least Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk missing and amusingly Donetsk, which is shown on the map doesn't even have more then 1 million inhabitants (And didn't in 2006), or am I missing something? If I am right either that map is pretty inaccurate or the description, because it clearly says cities with over 1,000,000 inhabitants not urban places or anything. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.234.119.14 (talk) 07:23, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Fait accompli
There appears to be some edit warring to achieve a 'Fait accompli' for this related TfD. I have restored the table, but it will obviously be removed if there is consensus to do so at TfD. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ (talk) 18:50, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
 * It's probably worth noting that the IP involved removed the equivalent template for Australia. I've restored that too. -- Aussie Legend  ( ✉ ) 19:27, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Information in Lists - City Proper versus Urban Area vs Metropolitan Area
This article has completely incompatible date for the different lists for different countries. For some it is the largest city propers, for others the urban areas and others metropolitan. Does anyone know why it was done this way? Having inconsistent data is obviously totally misleading. For example, the lists suggests that Sydney and Melbourne, Australia with around 5 million population listed are almost double the size of Toronto, Canada. For Sydney and Melbourne their metro pops have been used whereas their city proper populations are actually only around 100,000 while the city proper population of 2.7 mil is given for Toronto, when in fact the urban area population is around 6.8 million, the Canadian definition of metro area is 5.6 million and using the United States definition of metro area the population would be 9.2 million. It also gives misleading information within countries. In Canada, the 9th largest urban area or metro area is Kitchener, Ontario (about 550,000 or 690,000 if nearby Guelph was included, as using the US definition it would be), but because there has been no minimal municipal amalgamation of smaller cities to Kitchener, unlike many other cities in Canada, the central city of Kitchener only has a population of 231,000 and does not make the list of even the top 20 city propers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Informed analysis (talk • contribs) 13:47, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Every country uses their own demographics terminology and definitions of the same, so it is impossible to 'conformogromise' them into one universal scheme. But some insist on trying... every instance I've seen (since twelve years already) have, since they don't match reality (and institutional/source use), OR ESSAYs. And that's exactly why things are they are they way they are.
 * But I do also observe wholeheartedly that it can be confusing... perhaps some form of footnoting (for defining the terms used in each section/article) might help to clear that up. Cheers. T P  ✎ ✓ 16:59, 25 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Just putting a comment here with my two cents, this article is full of this. There are tables with a list of "urban areas" for each country but some like France and Japan aren't urban areas at all but city limits. Eopsid (talk) 19:22, 15 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Chipping in to say, yes, this article is baaaaad. Most of these templates don't belong here. If no-one objects I'm going through to cull any that obviously aren't lists of urban areas, and I'm gunna be brutal. ҉ Randwicked ҉ 01:20, 2 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Y'know, why wait any longer? This conversation started in March 2019 and no-one ever argued FOR the retention of all the irrelevant templates. Done. ҉ Randwicked ҉ 01:50, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what happened to the 'France' section since my last visit, but I took care of that, too. T P  ✎ ✓ 18:05, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Urban Agglomeration or Urban Area?
Anyone! Please note that Urban area is different from Urban Agglomeration. An Urban area is a connected total urbanized area, but Urban Agglomeration includes an Urban Area + not connected urban or rural areas => by maximum 2 kilometers distance — Preceding unsigned comment added by Geografi (talk • contribs) 16:49, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
 * The topic of the meaning of the various words might be confusing if it depends on where (which country) and when (which decade). Nonetheless because such concept might be confusing when on wikipedia you talk/read/write with/from/to somebody/a writter/a reader from a foreign country, in one language or another, I believe it could be nice to have a terminology or glossary section which could explain which word where used, when, where, in which purpose, why, how and how often, based on appropriate sources.
 * The when question could be answered by date of introduction of the concept;
 * The where question could be answered by the country using it or the variety of British/Amercian English;
 * The purpose question could be answered by the topic such as authority of the Mayor or any other political will;
 * The why question could be answered by the need to match a concept from a global or international organization, a foreign language, the need for a judge to solve a case, or anything else appropriate;
 * The how question could be answered by the fact from reusing a word from a foreign language, or mixing two words together; or resusing a concept yet previously existing, but with a new meaning;
 * The how often question could be more difficult to answer, while we could say, if any source support it, for instance:
 * in France every driver to pass his/her driving licence learn speed is limited within French agglomération'' (due to the many pedestrians)
 * If this can help, some definitions:
 * "The definition of urban areas in OECD countries uses population density to identify urban cores and travel-to-work flows to identify the interlands whose labour market is highly integrated with the cores." http://www.oecd.org/cfe/regional-policy/Definition-of-Functional-Urban-Areas-for-the-OECD-metropolitan-database.pdf
 * Other definition
 * A city is a local administrative unit (LAU) where a majority of the population lives in an urban centre of at least 50 000 inhabitants.
 * A commuting zone contains the surrounding travel-to-work areas of a city where at least 15 % of employed residents are working in the city.
 * A functional urban area consists of a city and its commuting zone. Functional urban areas therefore consist of a densely inhabited city and a less densely populated commuting zone whose labour market is highly integrated with the city (OECD, 2012). https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Glossary:Functional_urban_area
 * The answer to your question:
 * "For example, the UN publishes data on cities, urban areas and rural areas, but relies almost entirely on national definitions of these areas. The UN principles and recommendations state that due to different characteristics of urban and rural areas across the globe, a global definition is not possible." https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/work/2014_01_new_urban.pdf
 * Another interesting characterization:
 * "The traditional distinction between urban and rural areas within a country has been based on the assumption that urban areas, no matter how they are defined, provide a different way of life and usually a higher standard of living than are found in rural areas. In many industrialised countries, this distinction has become blurred and the principal difference between urban and rural areas in terms of the circumstances of living tends to be a matter of the degree of concentration of population. Although the differences between urban and rural ways of life and standards of living remain significant in developing countries, rapid urbanisation in these countries has created a great need for information related to different sizes of urban areas." (same source: https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/work/2014_01_new_urban.pdf
 * DEFINITIONS USED OF URBAN AREAS IN UNPD WORLD URBANIZATION PROSPECTS (2009) (might be specific to this project, who knows...)
 * Ireland: "Persons living in population clusters of 1 500 or more inhabitants (aggregate town areas, including suburbs)."
 * England and Wales: "urban areas formed of continuously built-up urban land, the largest urban areas forming agglomerations in which urban subdivisions are recognised."
 * Scotland: "urban localities, similar in concept to urban areas in England and Wales, except that the urban localities as defined do not extend across local government district boundaries."
 * Northern Ireland: "urban area formed of continuously built up land, forming an agglomeration in which urban subdivisions are recognised."
 * Germany "Communes (kreisfreie Städte and Kreise) with population density equal or greater than 150 inhabitants per km2"
 * France: "Communes with 2 000 inhabitants or more living in houses separated by at most 200 meters; or communes in which the majority of the population is part of a multi-communal agglomeration as defined above."
 * Netherlands: "Due to several historical changes in definition of urban areas, urban is defined in this publication as municipalities with 20 000 inhabitants or more"
 * Poland: "Towns and settlements of urban nature (for example, workers' settlements, fishermen's settlements and health resorts). https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/work/2014_01_new_urban.pdf
 * In 1991, the US had a concept of "Chapter 4, Urban area boundaries" https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/legsregs/directives/fapg/g406300.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.136.214.228 (talk) 19:09, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 17:06, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Perth from above.jpg

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 16:23, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Pudong .jpg

List of U S urbanareas
The list of US urban areas is placed on top of headlines "South America" and "Argentina". Please fix.--Bornsommer (talk) 14:47, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Disingenuous ranking
Seems to be some tipping of the scales somewhat, London which can fit New York and its environs' into its footprint many times over is ranked on population alone when London if memory serves me right by AREA is the largest western city urban area and 11th globally coming in behind the Asian megacities.

Are Americans THAT desperate to be top of a list to put a digital thumb on the scales to skew things in their favour? Heck you couldn't fit London into the whole of Area 51 and prob the air force range next to Area 51, it is bigger than some countries. Now if you were to follow the American way of doing things, then London should include all the urban centres down to the Medway, as far as Southend on the northern shore of the Thames, as far west as Reading, Slough and Swindon even and north to St Albans, as these are all urban areas close to the outskirts of the Greater London Area.

92.25.15.99 (talk) 19:02, 16 September 2022 (UTC)