Metropolis No. 1 Precinct, Massac County, Illinois

A metropolis () is a large city or conurbation which is a significant economic, political, and cultural center for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections, commerce, and communications.

A big city belonging to a larger urban agglomeration, but which is not the core of that agglomeration, is not generally considered a metropolis but a part of it. The plural of the word is ''metropolises'', although the Latin plural is ''metropoles'', from the Greek ''metropoleis'' ().

For urban centers outside metropolitan areas that generate a similar attraction on a smaller scale for their region, the concept of the regiopolis ("regio" for short) was introduced by urban and regional planning researchers in Germany in 2006.

Etymology

Metropolis (μητρόπολις) is a Greek word, coming from μήτηρ, ''mḗtēr'' meaning "mother" and πόλις, ''pólis'' meaning "city" or "town", which is how the Greek colonies of antiquity referred to their original cities, with whom they retained cultic and political-cultural connections. The word was used in post-classical Latin for the chief city of a province, the seat of the government and, in particular, ecclesiastically for the seat or see of a metropolitan bishop to whom suffragan bishops were responsible. This usage equates the province with the diocese or episcopal see.

In a colonial context, it is the "mother city" of a colony, that is, the city which sent out settlers. The word has distant roots in the colonial past of Ancient Greece with first usage in Middle English around the 14th century. This was later generalized to a city regarded as a center of a specified activity, or any large, important city in a nation.

Africa

Angola

Luanda is the capital and largest city in Angola. It is Angola's primary port, and its major industrial, cultural and urban centre. Its metropolitan area is the most populous Portuguese-speaking capital city in the world, with over 8.3 million inhabitants.

Democratic Republic of Congo

Kinshasa is a megacity with a population of about 15 million. Kinshasa is Africa's third-largest urban area after Cairo and Lagos. It is projected to be one of the ten biggest cities in the world in 2050.

Egypt

Cairo and Alexandria are considered Egypt's biggest metropolises.

Ethiopia

Addis Ababa is the capital city of Ethiopia, and where the African Union is headquartered. As of 2008 the metro population is approximately 4.5 million.

Ghana

Accra is an economic and administrative hub, and serves as the anchor of the larger Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA).

Ivory Coast

According to the 2014 census, Abidjan's population was 4.7 million, which is 20 percent of the overall population of the country, and this also makes it the sixth most populous city proper in Africa, after Lagos, Cairo, Kinshasa, Dar es Salaam, and Johannesburg. It has officially been designated as the "economic capital" of the country. In 2020 the Urban area population was over 5 million inhabitants.

Kenya

Nairobi is the capital and the largest city of Kenya. The city proper had a population of 4,397,073 in the 2019 census, while the metropolitan area has a population of 9,354,580.

Nigeria

Lagos is projected to be one of the ten biggest cities in the world in 2050. As of 2015, unofficial figures put the population of "Greater Metropolitan Lagos", which includes Lagos and its surrounding metro area, extending as far as into Ogun State, at approximately 21 million.

Tanzania

With a population increase of 5.6 percent per year from 2002 to 2012, Dar es Salaam is the third-fastest-growing city in Africa, after Bamako and Lagos, and the ninth-fastest-growing in the world. The metro population is expected to reach 15.12 million by 2020.

Uganda

Kampala is the capital and largest city of Uganda. Kampala's metropolitan area is estimated at 6,709,900 people in 2019 by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics in an area of . Kampala is reported to be among the fastest-growing cities in Africa, with an annual population growth rate of 4.03 percent.

Asia

Afghanistan

The capital city, Kabul, has grown to become the country's sole metropolis, and is the only city with more than one million people.

Bangladesh

In the People's Republic of Bangladesh, there are five metropolitan areas: Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, Sylhet and Khulna. Lands are highly priced and residents are considered to have a better urban lifestyle. Special police departments are allotted for the metropolitan cities, and there are city corporations for which mayors are elected for five-year regimes. Most of these cities have population density of 35,000/square mile or more. Dhaka is the wealthiest city out of all and is considered a Megacity because its population surpassed 10 million.

China

China ''(People's Republic of China)'' is the fourth-largest country by geographical area and the most populous country with over 1.4 billion people and is also known for its large number of metropoles, with recognised " tiers" that classify mainland metropoles. Nationally, the largest metropoles include Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the four cities are classified as the "First-Tier Cities" (一线城市). Second-tier cities are numerous and consist of regional centres, such as Changsha, Chengdu, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Jinan, Nanjing, Qingdao, Shenyang, Tianjin, Wuhan, and Xi'an, etc.

Many of China's metropoles constitute a city cluster, such as the Yangtze River Delta Megalopolis and the Pearl River Delta Megalopolis.

India

India ''(Republic of India)'' is the seventh-largest country by geographical area and the second-most populous country with over 1.3 billion people. The 74th Amendment to the Indian Constitution defines a metropolitan area as an area having a population of 10 Lakh or 1 Million or more, comprised in one or more districts and consisting of two or more Municipalities or Panchayats or other contiguous areas, specified by the Governor by public notification to be a Metropolitan area. As of 2011 Census of India, India has 46 other cities with populations greater than one million. Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad, Visakhapatnam, Kochi, are among the largest of 23 metropolitan cities in India.

Indonesia

In Indonesia, the metropolitan cities are in Jabodetabek (Jakarta, Bekasi, Bogor

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