Talk:List of primate cities

Criteria for primate city

Several cities in this list don't fulfil even the basic criteria, but these should be defined. A primate city is to have at least twice the population of the second city, and be "twice as important". Wikipedia lists city, urban, metro population for cities. Which one should be chosen? And how ,should "important" be defined?

Example: In Scandinavia Copenhagen (Denmark) is clearly a primate city, much larger than the second city (Århus). Oslo (Norway) has had a recent growth spurt and may just scrape in as primate city vs the number two, Bergen. Stockholm (Sweden) is clearly not a primate city, not even being twice the size of Gothenburg, thus I removed it.

I wholeheartedly agree with these remarks, in some cases it's pretty hard to decide whether or not a city qualifies as "primate" when the criteria are not clear/precise. For example, I'd be tempted to remove Sarajevo from the list as the city itself is only a little more populous than Banja Luka (the de-facto capital of the Serbian entity within BiH). Still, I'd be a little bit hesitant since I don't really know reliable figures for the metropolitan population of Banja Luka and thus I couldn't decide if Metro Sarajevo (including Istočno Sarajevo) meets the criteria (still not very likely).86.101.115.168 (talk) 02:10, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

For Porto/Lisbon (both in Portugal) the opposite is true: while the population within the city limits is more than twice as large in Lisbon (564k>2*237k - that would fulfil the population criterion) the Grande Lisboa Subregion is less than twice as populous as the Grande Porto Subregion and the Lisbon Metropolitan Area has less than twice as many residents as the Greater Metropolitan Area of Porto. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.101.115.168 (talk) 02:45, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

These are good questions and really highlight the generally poor state of this article. I also notice that culture is added to the mix in part of the article, yet the defining criteria of a primate city is "a major city that works as the financial, political, and population center of a country and is not rivaled in any of these aspects by any other city in that country" (emphasis added). I agree that it's strange that so much space is devoted to examples of countries with no primate city, but not a lot of room is given explaining countries that do have one. Finally, the sub-national list is even worse. Why are non-capital cities, such as Vancouver, even included? They clearly don't meet the criteria. --Robthepiper (talk) 22:25, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

I think the criteria for deciding whether a city is a primate or not should be the amount of population in the urban area or in the metropolis, instead of the populations of the (administrative) city, as the criteria how a "city" is defined vary from a country to a country. For example Stockholm's urban and metro populations are clearly larger than those of Gothenburg, only the "City" population which wikipedia lists is under the criteria. And urban population of Stockholm is almost three times larger than that of Gothenburg, that also speaks for position of a primate for Stockholm. 130.234.132.39 (talk) 15:07, 28 February 2017 (UTC)Ritzuk

Single-city countries

What about single-city city states like Hong Kong, Singapore, Monaco? By not having a second city they might be primate cities by default, but that to me is somewhat meaningless.

Example of Wiki Silliness

Well, actually almost every article is an example of it, but this one is a doozy. Almost all of the text talks about is the countries where no "primate city" exists. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.158.48.13 (talk) 13:57, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Honduras & Philippines

The map with countries without primate cities filled in in red needs to have Honduras filled in. Tegucigalpa is the capital and has about 1,200,000, and San Pedro Sula (800,000-900,000) is the industrial and business hub for the country. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.83.125.181 (talk) 13:21, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

The Philippines should be removed from the map. Manila is definitely a primate city.

I just did this -El Vacilando — Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.23.133.1 (talk) 14:37, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Manila is not a primate city as both Cebu and Davao are culturally and economically important to their respective regions as well as the whole country. Themanilaxperience (talk) 14:03, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Umm yeah I have to disagree. Metro Manila has over 5x the population of Metro Cebu. They may be important regional cities culturally but Manila so big it really outweighs that 119.95.9.162 (talk) 12:27, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

The Philippines & Malaysia

There has been a debate between Manila and KL as primate cities as Cebu and Penang (Georgetown) are significantly important to their respective countries.

Themanilaxperience (talk) 13:57, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Auckland is a primate city

Why is New Zealand listed as a country without a primate city? Auckland is almost a dictionary definition of a primate city - it is home to a third of the country's population, it is the destination for most of its immigration, it accounts for a disproportionate source of population and economic growth, and is the financial/economic/cultural/logistics hub of the nation. Yes, Wellington is the seat of government, but Auckland is still over three times its size and is most definitely 'more than twice as important' in a political sense.

Auckland is not primate city because it needs to also be politically unrivaled by other cities in the country. Wellington is the capital and at least nominally is superior to Auckland. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yaltaconference (talk • contribs) 03:17, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Subdivision - Tasmania

Can someone explain how Hobart is NOT the primate city of Tasmania? Population of 217,000 (vs Launceston 106,000), as well the government and financial centre of the state. Note: I was born in Launceston, and have lived in Hobart for the past 12 years - so while I believe I am impartial to both, I'd like to have the opinion of someone uninvolved! -- Chuq (talk) 05:24, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree with you. I've visited both and wondered what a native Aussie would make of this. I shall be bold and remove it Cls14 (talk) 11:34, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

What's up with Moscow?

Moscow does not count as a primate city, how exactly? Moscow's population is well over twice that of Saint-Petersburg (which in turn is well over twice the population of the next largest city, Novosibirsk). --85.140.241.59 (talk) 19:39, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

I believe that Moscow would have to be also unrivaled culturally, I believe that Saint Petersburg culturally rivals Moscow, and could be superior to Moscow. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yaltaconference (talk • contribs) 03:20, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Tables?

Instead of just lists, I would like there to be tables, containg city name, country, population incl suburbs and the name and population of the second largest city. What do you say?--BIL (talk) 10:08, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Is Tokyo a primate city?

From the page List of metropolitan areas in Japan by population, the Tokyo metropolitan area has a population nearly twice as big as that of Osaka-Kyoto-Kobe, and Tokyo alone is greater than that of the next four biggest areas (Keihanshin, Nagoya, Fukuoka, and Shizuoka-Hamamatsu) combined. Would this generally fall under classification of a primate city? ««« SOME GADGET GEEK »»» (talk) 17:19, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Primate or premier or prime

See Talk:Primate city#Primate or premier or prime and if interested comment there. -- PBS (talk) 16:50, 23 July 2017 (UTC)