A satellite view of the U.S. Northeast megalopolis, the most populous megalopolis in the Western Hemisphere, home to over 50 million people, displayed at night.
A megalopolis (sometimes called a megapolis; also megaregion, or supercity)[1] is typically defined as a chain of roughly adjacent metropolitan areas, which may be somewhat separated or may merge into a continuous urban region.
Emerging megalopolises in the developing world include the Pearl River Delta, which when formed will constitute the core part of a Southern China Coast megaregion; the Unified Jakarta-Bandung metro area forming the core of the Northern Java megaregion; and the Yangtze River Delta core, a part of a Central Chinese Coast megaregion.
History of term megalopolis
The term was used by Patrick Geddes in his 1915 book Cities in Evolution,[2][verification needed] by Oswald Spengler in his 1918 book The Decline of the West, and Lewis Mumford in his 1938 book The Culture of Cities, which described it as the first stage in urban overdevelopment and social decline. Later, it was used by Jean Gottmann in his landmark 1961 study, Megalopolis: The Urbanized Northeastern Seaboard of the United States, to describe the chain of metropolitan areas along the northeastern seaboard of the US, extending from Boston, Massachusetts, through New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore and ending in Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia.[3][4][5] The latter is sometimes called the "BosWashmegalopolis". The term has been interpreted as meaning "supercity".[1] In 1994 the magazine National Geographic (Vol 186, No.1 July 1994) featured a "Double Map Supplement: Megalopolis." of Boston to Washington Circa 1830 and on the flip-side a contemporary (1994) map of the same region to coincide with the 33 page feature article on page 2 "Breaking New Ground: Boston" by William S. Ellis Photographs Joel Sartore. The contemporary 1994 map cites the term Megalopolis being first used in 1961 to refer to the BosWash region.
Megapolis is ungrammatically derived from Greek: μέγας (mégas) meaning 'great' and Greek: πόλις (pólis) meaning 'city', therefore literally a 'great city' (compare "megacity"). Because in Greek, πόλις is feminine, the correct term is megalopolis.[citation needed] The Ancient Greek city of Megalopolis was formed by the Arcadian League by bringing together smaller communities.
A megalopolis, also known as a megaregion, is a clustered network of cities. Gottmann defined its population as 25 million.[6] Doxiadis defined a small megalopolis a similar cluster with a population of about 10 million.[7][8][9] America 2050,[10] a program of the Regional Plan Association, lists 11 megaregions in the United States and Canada.[7] Literally, megalopolis in Greek means a city of exaggerated size where the prefix megalo- represents a quantity of exaggerated size.[11]Megapolitan areas were explored in a July 2005 report by Robert E. Lang and Dawn Dhavale of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech.[12] A later 2007 article by Lang and Nelson uses 20 megapolitan areas grouped into 10 megaregions.[13] The concept is based on the original Megalopolis model.[9]
Modern interlinked ground transportation corridors, such as rail and highway, often aid in the development of megalopolises. Using these commuter passageways to travel throughout the megalopolis is informally called megaloping. This term was coined by Davide Gadren and Stefan Berteau.[14]
In Brazil, the similar sounding terms to megaregion (megarregião when translated to English, are actually legally distinct and take on quite different meaning: Mesoregions of Brazil (mesorregião) and Microregions of Brazil (microrregião).
Nile River Delta Governorates (Alexandria, Beheira, Kafr el-Sheikh, Gharbia, Monufia, Qalyubia, Dakahlia, Damietta, Al Sharqia, and Port Said) have a combined population of 41,045,135. The total area of these Governorates is 18,199 square miles making the population density 2,255.4 per square mile.
The region in Morocco including El Jadida-Casablanca-Rabat-Salé-Kenitra, concentrating in the long coastal belt, on around 250 km with a depth of 40 to 50 km, more than 11 million inhabitants.[citation needed]
The following megaregions in Colombia are expected to have nearly 93% (55 Million people) of its population by 2030, up from the current 72%. There are currently 4 major megaregions in Colombia.
Constituent urban areas of each megalopolis are based on reckoning by a single American organization, the Regional Plan Association (RPA). The RPA definition of the Great Lakes Megalopolis includes some Canadian metropolitan areas with the United States including some but not all major urban centres in the Windsor-Quebec City Corridor. Note that one city, Houston, is listed in two different Megalopolis regions as defined by the RPA, (the Gulf Coast and Texas Triangle).[7][21]
The central Liaoning city cluster in China. Within 150 km from its center Shenyang (7.2 million), it has Fushun (3 million), Anshan City (3.6 million), Benxi (1.5 million), Liaoyang (1.8 million), Yingkou (2.2 million), Panjin (1.2 million), and Tieling (3.4 million), with a total population of 23 million. And it can be further extended to Dalian (6.2 million), Fuxin (2 million) and Dandong (2.4 million). This area used to be the most industrialized region in China. It declined during 1980s-1990s, but in recent years, it has rapidly revived.
Dhaka, Bangladesh; part of the emerging chain of cities in the Bengal region
Sri Lanka
Western Region Supercity of Colombo (Megapolis) with 3,687 km2 land area and currently over 7 million population comprising several municipal, urban, and town councils politically. This is planned to be spacious and modern megacity with dedicated core zones for financial, trade, industrial, educational, logistic, transport, health, sports, recreational activities and services in par with the international level. Once completed it would be one of the most livable and favored cities in the world.
Greater Tehran: A region located in Iranian Tehran and Alborz Province in central Northern Iran with its influence expanding in Qom Province, Qazvin Province and Mazandaran Province, home for at least 15 million people, it is one of the most populous urban areas in the Greater Middle East and the surrounding regions. Tehran was a small village 200 years ago when it was first chosen as the Capital city and it has been growing at a very fast rate.
Turkey
(all figures extrapolated from end of 2014 and end of 2015 figures of,[37] to middle of year 2016)
Greater Istanbul: Includes Istanbul city proper, with continuous urbanization spilling over to neighboring provinces, as well as nearby dense population and highly industrialized areas. Istanbul, eastern counties of Tekirdağ province, entire coast of Izmit bay, and Adapazarı add up to 17.5 million population.
Judge Dredd (1977) Mega-City One is a huge fictional megalopolis-size city-state covering much of what is now the Eastern United States and some of Canada in the Judge Dredd comic book series and its spinoff series. The exact geography of the city depends on which writer and artist has done which story, but from its first appearance it has been associated with New York City's urban sprawl; originally it was presented as a future New York, which was retconned as the centre of a "Mega-City One" in the very next story.[46] The Architects' Journal placed it at No. 1 in their list of "comic book cities".[47]See also Megacities in Judge Dredd
Megatokyo (メガトーキョー) (also stylized as MegaTokyo) is an English-language webcomic created by Fred Gallagher and Rodney Caston. Megatokyo debuted on August 14, 2000, and has been written and illustrated solely by Gallagher since July 17, 2002. Set in a fictional version of Tokyo, Megatokyo portrays the adventures of Piro, a young fan of anime and manga, and his friend Largo, an American video game enthusiast. The comic often parodies and comments on the archetypes and clichés of anime, manga, dating sims, arcade and video games, occasionally making direct references to real-world works. Megatokyo originally emphasized humor, with continuity of the story a subsidiary concern.
^Geddes, Patrick (1915). Cities in Evolution. London: Williams & Norgate – via Internet Archive.
^Gottmann, Jean (1954). L'Amerique. Paris: Hachette.
^Gottmann, Jean (1957). "Megalopolis, or the urbanization of the Northeastern Seaboard". Economic Geography. 33 (3): 189–200. doi:10.2307/142307.
^Gottmann, Jean (1961). Megalopolis. The Urbanized Northeastern seaboard of the United States. New York: The Twentieth Century Fund.
^Gottmann, Jean (1989). Since Megalopolis. The Urban Writings of Jean Gottmann. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 163.
^ abcTaylor, Matt. "Megaregions". America 2050. Archived from the original on 2017-05-16. Retrieved 2017-04-06. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
^Tremble, Sam (May 30, 2007). "Fumbling Toward Portland". Philadelphia City Paper. Archived from the original on July 7, 2009. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
^"Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2006-10-07. Retrieved 2007-01-01. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
^"Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2006-09-24. Retrieved 2007-01-01. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
^Ordóñez Burbano, Luis A. (2007). Universidad del Valle 60 años 1945-2005: Atando cabos en clave de memoria. Cali, Valle del Cauca, Colombia: Universidad del Valle. p. 58. OCLC645219600
^Regional Plan Association (2008). America 2050: An Infrastructure Vision for 21st Century America. New York: Regional Plan Association.
^"地域活性化戦略(案)資料"(PDF) (in Japanese). Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. p. 4. Archived from the original(PDF) on September 23, 2016. Retrieved August 13, 2016. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
^"2015 Population Census". Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. Archived from the original on August 25, 2016. Retrieved August 13, 2016. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
^A government publication states that on 1 November 2010, the population of "Seoul Metropolitan Area" stood at 23,616 thousand, which is the sum of the figures given for Gyeonggi-do (11,270 thousand), Seoul (9,708 thousand) and Incheon (2,638 thousand), apparently including the periphery. Source: "Preliminary Results of the 2010 Population and Housing Census"Archived 2012-01-31 at the Wayback Machine (PDF). Statistics Korea. 21 January 2011. Retrieved 23 July 2011.
^"Google". Google. Archived from the original on 2017-04-06. Retrieved 2017-04-06. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
^"广西北部湾经济区概况". Archived from the original on 6 October 2014. Retrieved 5 October 2014. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
^"What is STRING?". STRING. Archived from the original on 2018-02-26. Retrieved 2018-02-26. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
^Magid 2006, p. 129. sfn error: no target: CITEREFMagid2006 (help)
^Grant 2003, p. 14. sfn error: no target: CITEREFGrant2003 (help)
^"Metropolis (1927)"Science Fiction Film History. Retrieved 15 May 2013. Quote: "Although the first science fiction film is generally agreed to be Georges Méliès' A Trip To The Moon (1902), Metropolis (1926) is the first feature length outing of the genre."
^Hahn, Ronald M. and Jansen, Volker (1998) Die 100 besten Kultfilme Munich: Heyne Filmbibliothek. p.396. ISBN3-453-86073-X(German)