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Primate city

 
Geography Dictionary: primate city
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The largest city within a nation which dominates the country not solely in size—being more than twice as large as the second city, as in London and Birmingham, UK—but also in terms of influence. The development of primacy is not fully understood but some researchers have suggested that the importance of the primate city tends to decline as the economy grows and that, therefore, primacy tends to occur in less developed nations. However, the rise of the primate city may be encouraged by colonialism, as it occurs often at the major port. Capital cities of past empires tend to be over-large. See rank-size rule.

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A primate city is the leading city in its country or region, disproportionately larger than any others in the urban hierarchy.[1] A 'primate city distribution' has one very large city with many much smaller cities and towns, and no intermediate-sized urban centres, in contrast to the linear 'rank-size distribution'.[2] The 'law of the primate city' was first proposed by the geographer Mark Jefferson in 1939.[3] He defines a primate city as being "at least twice as large as the next largest city and more than twice as significant."[4] A primate city is number one in its country in most aspects, like politics, economy, media, culture and universities.

Contents

Significance

Not all countries have primate cities, but in those that do, the rest of the country depends on it for cultural, economic, political, and major transportation needs.

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.[5] However, the urban structure is not directly dependent on a country's level of economic development.[1]

Examples

Among the best known examples of primate cities are alpha world cities of London and Paris.[6]


See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b Goodall, B. (1987) The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography. London: Penguin.
  2. ^ http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/rb/rb186.html GaWC Research Bulletin 186
  3. ^ http://geography.about.com/od/urbaneconomicgeography/a/primatecities.htm Primate Cities - An Overview of Primate Cities
  4. ^ Jefferson. "The Law of the Primate City", in Geographical Review 29 (April 1939)
  5. ^ Brunn, Stanley et al. Cities of the World. Boulder, CO: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, 2003
  6. ^ Jefferson. "The Law of the Primate City", in Geographical Review 29 (April 1939)

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Geography Dictionary. A Dictionary of Geography. Copyright © Susan Mayhew 1992, 1997, 2004. All rights reserved.  Read more
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