Primate Cities

A primate city is the dominant city among a country's urban areas. Countries have urban hierarchies comprising large and small cities in terms of their population sizes, spatial extent, or territorial size and the importance of their economies. Primate cities are the largest cities in their respective countries, as they dominate the economy as well as being the top ranking in terms of territorial extent and population size. Geographer Mark Jefferson coined the term in the 1930s and defined a primate city as one that is twice as large as the next largest city in the urban hierarchy of a country and twice as significant economically. A primate city also dominates in terms of the centralization of the country's transport and communications, industrial and commercial institutions, trade, education, culture, and other phenomena.

Primate cities around the world tend to be many times larger than the next largest cities in their respective countries, including London (about six times the size of the second largest city) and Paris (about eight times the size of the next largest city). Other examples from the developed world include Copenhagen, Prague, Budapest, Vienna, Brussels, and Dublin. In the developing world, Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, is at least 35 times the size of the next largest city, Chiangmai, in terms of population. Bangkok's economic role is even more significant, and this primate city is believed to generate half of the country's jobs and gross domestic product. Other developing country examples include Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Lagos (Nigeria), Kampala (Uganda), Bogotá (Colombia), Jakarta (Indonesia), Baghdad (Iraq), Tehran (Iran), Manila (Philippines), Mexico City, and Buenos Aires (Argentina). Primacy in the urban hierarchy is seen to reflect uneven development in a country, with a highly developed metropolitan core or center surrounded by peripheral areas that are lagging behind in economic and social progress. These areas largely serve to provide the material resources and labor supply to the primate city.

There is no single cause for the development of primate cities, since they are not necessarily confined to developing countries. Yet many of the developing countries with such primate cities have been European colonies, where these cities served as the gateways to the natural wealth being exploited by colonial administrations. These ad ministrations concentrated the [Page 2291]development of infrastructure and services such as rail transport and ports in these primate cities. They may be areas of substantial agglomeration economies as well.

Primate cities around the world such as Buenos Aires tend to be many times larger than the next largest cities in their respective countries.

Source: Winfield Parks/National Geographic/Getty Images.

Primate cities, because of their sheer size and the economic activities concentrated in them, serve as magnets to migrants from rural areas and smaller cities or towns. Many are attracted by the promise of better economic opportunities and lives in the primate cities. Such migration has added to the primacy of the cities, many of which are capital cities as well as cities that have grown beyond their earlier administrative boundaries. Bangkok is a metropolitan region extending into surrounding areas through sprawl and suburbanization as well as periurban growth. This process has been encouraged by businesses and households seeking to escape the congestion and related problems such as pollution, inadequate housing, and traffic jams in the inner-city areas.

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