Talk:List of metropolitan areas by population/Archive 1

message: It is true that there is no standard international definition for metropolitan areas. Demographers generally agree, however, that a metropolitan area is a labor market. They are generally larger than areas of continous urbanisation (called urban areas, urbanised areas or agglomerations), but sometimes not. For example, there is nearly continuous urbanisation from Hartford, CT to south of Wilmington, DE. But this is by no means a single labour market. The US Census Bureau breaks it into three principal metropolitan areas --- Hartford, NYC and Philadelphia. 
Some nations do have metropolitan area standards, which are appropriate for comparison within the countries, but strictly not outside. Such countries include, but are not limited to the US, Canada, France, Brazil, Argentina and India. The UK measures urban areas, as also do the US, Canada, France and Australia (there called urban centres).
Thus, comparisons of international metropolitan areas must be carefully undertaken and include appropriate cautions.
That being said, the present list is slow flawed as to be highly misleading. Some examples...
1. The list includes a number of urbanised areas. What are urbanised areas doing in a list of metropolitan areas? It would make as much sense to put a few national provinces in the list.
:This is a good point. The UN report is actually closer to a list or urban areas rather than metropolitan areas. But in the absence of an authoritative and well-documented source, this seems like the best compromise. I realize there are other sources such as demographia.com but the tabulations are not public domain and the area definitions (i.e. what is included and what is not) are not well-documented. 
2. NYC is 3m short of the census data.
3. LA is 5m short of the census data.
:The numbers for all US cities are census data for the urbanized area, which the US Census also tabulates. They are not the same as the metropolitan statistical area figures.
4. Manila is way low. The Manila metropolitan area (and even the urbanised area) extends far beyond the boundaries of the National Capital Region (Metro Manila)
:That is true but there is not one single definition as to which municipalities in the adjacent provinces to include. The census office also does not tabulate an entity larger than Metro Manila to represent the metropolitan area of Manila.
5. The Osaka-Kobe metro area is really the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area, and has about 6 million more than listed here. The OKK metropolitan area includes Nara and Himeji.
:These again are urban areas. The Statistics Office publishes a list of cities/towns/villages included in the urban area.
6. The London number is about 40 percent low. The London metropolitan area (labour market area) extends beyond the greenbelt. A common definition is to use the counties bordering on the greenbelt (including the unitary authorities that have been created from the counties) as well as the GLA to form the London metro area. 
:The London figure is for the urban area but the UN report uses 1991 census data. The projections are lower than the most recent census (2001).
7. It is without reason to list the area or population density of a metropolitan area where there is no standard. This is evidenced by the US, where the "county build up" creates huge variations in density. The LA consolidated area has about 30,000 square miles, most of which is desert. Why? Because that's how the county lines are drawn. If the metropolitan area were instead defined by census tract or even municipalities, it would be far smaller. At the same time, the Canadians develop their metropolitan areas at the commune level, which means that they are much smaller in area than in the US on average.
Here is some official data...
*United States Metropolitan Areas County Based Metropolitan Area Estimates Based on Census Bureau Data 2004
*Canada Metropolitan Areas Metropolitan Areas 2001 Statcan Census Data
Wendell Cox
20051220
wcox@demographia.com
:See responses after each numbered item above. Polaron 02:33, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Understanding Metropolitan Areas

message: This article has a severe problem with mixing regions with metro areas. A good example is Los Angeles, the Great Los Angeles Metro area, The Southland, and then Southern California are three different things. If it's Metro area the list should only include Los Angeles and Orange Counties with a population of around 13 million. When clicking on the Southern California page I quickly learned this estimate also includes San Diego and its metropolitan area, which is also listed at #70, so basically San Diego is listed twice. This number is quite flawed to begin with, why not add Phildadelphia to New York's metro since the areas flow together, or Milwaukee to Chicago's? I'm sure this sort of ridiculous rounding up has occured on other cities besides just LA. This needs to be corrected unless we are doing this by region and not by Metropolitan Areas. 1:40 September 4, 2005
Regarding Los Angeles' population, I defend the United Nations accuracy, as it DOES NOT include San Diego.  The United States Census Bureau defines metropolitan areas for the USA, for Los Angeles, this is DEFINED AS Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Bernardino County and Riverside County.  A case could be made that Barstow is not in Los Angeles, but its inclusion or exclusion is not significant.  Specifically, it refers to CMSA, or Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area, which itself is made up of MSA's or Metropolitan Statistical Areas.  The Census Bureau redefines them periodically as required.  
'Large atlases and geographical societies worldwide have generally agreed on the definition of a metropolitan area as that of continual buildup and commuting to the central city as reasons for inclusion as a suburb and not a separate city, and there are people who spend their entire careers choosing to add suburbs to the count or not, and I generally trust their expert judgement.  Of course, as cities are not static, and numbers change continually, urban slums may never have had a count, twin cities across international borders, rural areas included in urban counts, and situations arise that test the definitions, unstable nations may have irregular or politically modified counts, incorrectly filled forms, duplicates, lack of records, false records, moving and nomadic people, city based residency, active war zones and definitions may be incompatible from year to year and country to country, thus the reason this article's accuracy is disputed.  However, the world's university geography professors and geographical societies rarely argue about the definition.  It seems to me this entire talk portion is filled with people who lack a geography degree, moreover, they change numbers for political rivalry.  But political rivalry should not be allowed to conquer the best factual information that takes years and expensive census counts to get.  Don't make a mockery of the hundreds of thousands of census workers worldwide braving elements, war, famine and disease, to reach every corner of the earth, as well as geography professors. For the sake of humanity, don't change numbers unless u have a Ph.D. in geography please....'
See bottom. DirectorStratton 15:32, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Regions or Metro areas

message: The population of Lagos in 2000 was 13.4 million. As of today, even by conservative estimates, the population is at least 16 million, even higher by other estimates. I have tried to change this twice to reflect in the article however it keeps getting deleted, which is highly frustrating. Please check your stats.
http://www.unhabitat.org/mediacentre/documents/sowc/lagos.pdf
:All listed figures in the current list are from the UN World Urbanization Prospects Report. Unless there is a concensus to use a different source, I think the numbers should be consistent with the currently cited source. There is most likely a large uncertainty in the population figure of Lagos in the UN report since the most recent census was 1991 and projections were based on 1971-1991. It is likely that when the 2005 report comes out, the numbers may be closer to what you indicate. In the meantime, my opinion is we should stick to the numbers in the report. Polaron 14:42, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lagos 

message: The Shanghai-Suzhou-Changzhou-Wuxi area can be effectively deemed as one metropolitan area.
No.  In fact the Shanghai metro area is even smaller than the listed value which includes all of Shanghai Municipality. DirectorStratton 15:32, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shanghai 

message: This article uses a variety of standards to determine population figures, none of which are widely recognised.  It may be forever impossible to fix this article (short of a UN list I suppose), but regardless the neutrality tag should stay put. DirectorStratton 15:32, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article biased and non-standard 

message: Except for a few weeks where I spent vacation outside Metro Manila, I have spent my entire life in Metro Manila - Quezon City to be more exact.
I believe the estimate of 16 Million for Metro Manila is too high.
The highest estimate of Metro Manila population that I have heard of is 12 Million.  At this point, people refer to it as Mega Manila which supposedly include the southern most towns/cities of Bulacan, northern most towns/cities of Laguna and Cavite, and the western most towns/cities of Rizal Province. Mega Manila is by no means an official political term nor does it have a specific border.  
Even the total that you have in the article of Metro Manila is only 9.953 Million only.  This, I believe is accurate.
Please note that I havent tried to correct the figures in your article.
Homer de los Santos
homerds@pacific.net.ph
As I put in the header, virtually all the population figures in this article are wrong.  Thanks for the info, I went to the Ph. National Statistics and you're right. DirectorStratton 18:31, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Population of Metro Manila 

message: So it turns out there are UN statistics on urban agglomerations.  I'll try to implement these soon. DirectorStratton 20:30, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  UN statistics 

message: I do not find it reasonable to include Niagara Falls as part of Toronto. There is a small break in the conurbation on both sides of Saint Catherines. If, however, Niagara Falls is considered part of Toronto, then so obviously is Buffalo because the region between Niagara Falls and Buffalo is completely urban on the American side. The population given is therefore either too large or too small.
:I think it's safe to eliminate Niagara Falls as well, although it doesn't change things much to be honest. A more interesting one is Hamilton, which adds about a million to the Toronto figure. Although it is true that the settlement is now largely continuous (only recently though), I doubt anyone in Hamilton would consider themselves part of Toronto. However even if you eliminate those bits, Toronto is still about 4.6 million, so it's not a huge change. Maury 15:19, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, the whole Golden Horseshoe can be considered, one way or another, to be part of the wide-area metro of Toronto.  There is a very small gap between St. Catharines and Niagara Falls, but the gap is no larger than the gap between Oakville and Burlington, or Aurora and Newmarket.  Toronto is widely considered to be North America's fifth largest metropolitan area, so ranking it lower than Phillidelphia doesn't make much sense, especially when the closest thing to a Canadian equivilent of a CMSA pegs Toronto at 8 million people. Snickerdo 09:22, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Toronto 

message: I'm questioning Phoenix to be on that list of metropolitan areas. Phoenix metropolitan area includes approximately 37 000 sq km, or almost the size of Switzerland or Denmark. It must be some sort of a record in size when it comes to define a metropolitan area or region.
--Bobowskij 00:41, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, I stand corrected. But, what is considered as the Phoenix metropolitan area, is still huge and covers the size of a smaller country. I wasn't aware of that most of the population is concentrated around the same spot. I thought the population was more scattered.--Bobowskij 00:35, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Phoenix 

message: The numbers for some US cities, Vietnamese cities, and St. Petersburg seem to be different from the numbers in the article. I don't know if new projections were made for these cities. I'll try and update the numbers later when I have time. (Polaron)
:I just checked more carefully and the differences are either due to using the 2000 numbers for US and Vietnamese cities, the 2010 numbers for Rhein-Ruhr North, and possibly typos fro Dhaka and St. Petersburg. Polaron 20:53, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I tried to use the 2005 statistics from the report, apologies if I have made mistakes.  Also great job with the article. DirectorStratton 06:56, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Updated projections?

message: The population of the Moscow itself is more than 12 million, not to say metropolitan area.--Nixer 00:15, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Delirium 

message: The city is currently listed as having a population of 3.2 million, based on the 2001 census. This is correct, but the figure only applies to the City of Johannesburg Municipality, and does not include the entire metropolitan area.
If one looks at the urban morphology of the city, it is important to compare apples with apples. Greater New York includes the five boroughs, parts of Connecticut, Northern New Jersey and Long Island, with a population of around 22 million. Few people dispute this, and the area is classified as a CMSA (consolidated metropolitan statistical area).
In the case of Johannesburg, the origins of the city and the growth of the urban area must be considered. The city was officially established in 1886, after the discovery of gold. All along the gold-bearing reef, small settlements began to develop, such as Germiston and Boksburg on the East Rand and Roodepoort on the West Rand. The centre of activity remained the area around Johannesburg, which today comprises the CBD. Thus, a hundred years ago, there was some separation between the small towns of the Witwatersrand and the urban core around Johannesburg. Quickly, as the towns and Jo'burg grew, the whole area became one contiguous built-up area known as the Witwatersrand ("ridge of white waters" in English). "East Rand" and "West Rand" were short for the eastern and western side of the Witwatersrand respectively.
As far back as the early 1890s, Johannesburg and its surrounding towns were always regarded as a single metropolitan entity, although separated by municipality for administrative purposes later on. It was similar to Los Angeles, once described as "19 suburbs in search of a city." Three specific pieces of evidence to support this: 1)Map books of Jo'burg always included the whole Witwatersrand. 2)The dialling code for the whole area is (011). 3)The then Jan Smuts Airport was built on the East Rand. Its airport code has always been JNB (for Johannesburg). Even Newark (EWR) is regarded as an airport that serves New York. Furthermore, the case study of the South African city is very interesting: the urban form is unlike any in the world, either developed (Western) world or developing (Third) world. Because of Apartheid, people were separated according to race, and municipal areas drawn up along racial lines, to enforce racial separation. For example, Soweto was always included in the Jo'burg municipal area, but had its own municipal offices and city council. Alexandra was always separated from Sandton, which in itself is an interesting case study: it was formed in 1969 because Jo'burg was growing too big to the north. A separate municipality was established for the "mink and manure belt," the rich, upper class Whites who then were very separated from their Black counterparts. Following the demise of the Group Areas Act and the decision to end Apartheid, the contrived separation of race was addressed and municipal areas drawn up along racial lines were scrapped. New interim urban structures were created, which led to a hue and outcry by the mostly privileged White population. The proposal was that instead of having large urban areas with separate municipalities, large single regions called "unicities" should be created. This was done for Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria. In the case of Port Elizabeth, the areas of Uitenhage and Despatch were included, because they were deemed to be functionally linked to Port Elizabeth.
In the case of Jo'burg, however, the vast urban area was deemed too big for a single municipality (rendering services such as water, electricity and garbage removal would have been too difficult a function for one city), so the government decided to split the area in two: Johannesburg (which now included Soweto and Roodepoort, always originally part of the West Rand), and Ekurhuleni (all the separate municipalities of the East Rand were merged into one). Other parts of the West Rand became Mogale City. But once again, the separation is purely administrative. The two remain functionally and economically linked. For example, Rand McNally suggests that metropolitan areas are defined "irrespective of administrative boundaries." Theodore Brinkhoff pegs the Greater Jo'burg population to be around 7.4 million. This seems the most accurate figure, based on projections from the 2001 census of the combined populations of Jo'burg and Ekurhuleni. The two "cities" are so similar, in fact, that the only different between metro police services is the colour of their vehicles (Jo'burg orange, East Rand yellow). Their liveries/markings have exactly the same design.
Thus, ANY listing of Johannesburg's metro population should include both East and West Rand.
The case for Johannesburg and Pretoria is equally interesting: are these two cities one and the same? Here, evidence would suggest they are not: Pretoria founded 1855, Jo'burg 1886; different area dialling codes (012/011); separate universities; very different cultures (Pretoria conservative, Jo'burg radical); different languages (Pretoria Tswana and Afrikaans, Jo'burg Zulu and English); different functions (Pretoria sedate and government-orientated; Jo'burg fast-paced and finance-orientated). However, the Gauteng government has noticed how much the two cities are becoming more interdependent, and are now looking at the area as a single, globally competitive city region. Massive increased traffic between the two is an example: many people live in Pretoria, but work in Jo'burg, particularly in the finance and IT sectors. Another example is radio stations: 94.7 Highveld used to broadcast only to Greater Jo'burg and the Vaal; 94.2 Jacaranda used to broadcast only to Pretoria, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and the North West. Now they both broadcast in both cities. One could argue, therefore, that the two cities are becoming a single megalopolitan area.
:All the numbers in the current list are from the UN World Urbanization Prospects report. I don't know the reasons for the specific definitions chosen by the UN. My guess is that they prefer to use a single official census value for each urban area if possible, making compilation easier.
:This separation of areas that are often unified was also done for Osaka-Kobe + Kyoto, San Francisco + San Jose, and Washington + Baltimore. I am not sure what the best way to address issues such as this is. We could add up the figures for "separate but should be combined" urban areas and list that. Or we could add footnotes indicating that the actual integrated urban entity is larger than what is listed and put the relevant figure in the footnote.
:For reference, citypopulation.de adds up the muncipalities of Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and West Rand district to get the Johannesburg agglomeration figure; world-gazeteer.com is similar but excludes Merafong municipality in West Rand resulting in a slightly lower figure. Polaron 18:33, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you that the UN numbers are not always the most appropriate for many metro areas. However, most of us here are probably not qualified or authoritative enough to apply standards for one country to a different country. It would be extremely difficult to come up with a single standard applicable to all areas. What the UN does is use a single tabulated figure published by the national statistics office of each country that is closest to the metro area definition. If the national statistics office does not tabulate metropolitan areas, then the UN uses another definition. I guess, we could just add figures from the national statistics office up, but then what is the justification for choosing which municipalities to include and exclude? Johannesburg is probably similar to the case of Seoul where only the city proper is included and the satellite towns/cities are not. The reason is probably similar. In the case of New York, Tokyo, Sao Paolo, and Sydney, their respective national statistics offices do tabulate metropolitan areas, which the UN uses. Actually, in the case of New York, it is the urbanized area figure (smaller than the census metropolitan area) that is used. If we start changing numbers/definitions based on definitions from a non-authoritative source, we'll be opening the doors for other users to just keep on inflating the numbers by including more and more surrounding municipalities or citing sources other than the national statistics offices. I am open to using one of the other lists linked to in the article as long as we can define precisely how the numbers were obtained and what areas where included. Polaron 17:57, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Johannesburg

message: This list is a joke. The New York figure isn't comparable with LA, let alone London, and goodness only knows what the complications are for most of the others. People who see this article see the warning (though they might not take it in) but in other articles the rankings are quoted as "facts" which is hopelessly misleading and inappropriate. Rhollenton 21:04, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: This concept should die

message: Anybody else notice places that are just blatantly missing? The Seattle, WA metro area has a population of near 4 million, and isn't anywhere on the list.
*According to the cited source, Seattle (urbanized area) has a population of 2,959,000, placing it at #106. Polaron 06:08, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Missing Cities

message: Why would someone seperate San Jose to the San Francisco Bay Area? 
As far as I'm concern they are both connected physically (there is an unbroken string of urbanized area between them) and mentally (people who lives here, including me, consider the place as part of one metropolitan area which is the "Bay Area")
*The US Census Bureau itself separates the areas. There are separate urban areas and metropolitan statistical areas but are combined only in the combined statistical area. The UN just follows what the census office of each country does. Is there a more authoritative source for metropolitan area desginations in the US?
So why not just use the "Combined Statistical Area" of San Francisco and San Jose since it is also officially recognized by US Census Bereau? It is far more accurate representation of what we called the Metropolitan Area here.
Keep in mind just because the Census calls it "Metropolitan Statistical Area" it does not necessarily means it is THE "Metropolitan Area" which was described in this encyclopedia.
hence, it is called metropolitan STATISTICAL area and not simply "Metropolitan Area"
"Metropolitan Statistical Area" is different from the term "Metropolitan Area" we refering here.
As far as Im concern the "combined statistical area" is just as good of a "metropolitan area desginations" as the "metropolitan statistical area" is
Some if not many of those "Combined Statitistical Areas" far better reflects those what we called "Metropolitan Area" an example is the Bay Area. Of course this only applies to the US.
just my two cents.
*I agree that the Combined Statistical Area is a better representation for some US areas. But this is not true for all areas. Boston, for example, seems overly large if one uses the CSA. But Seattle seems like it should have CSA ratings because from Everett down to Olympia is almost packed in solid. So many people work in the suburbs. There are car dealerships everywhere in the suburbs. They don't really reley on the central city(Seattle) very much. But it is still one big one that usually gets off the map 'cause they divide the metro area up into smaller sections. There is also an advantage to using a single, authoritative source for all the figures. It makes verification easy. If we start making exceptions to the UN definitions for some areas, other people will probably start using other sources as well, making this list even more problematic since it will have multiple sources that may not be consistent with each other. My opinion is we should use a single source for all figures. The only question is which source to use. Some people are advocating for citypopulation.de. Maybe we can hve some kind of voting to determine which source to use. In the meantime, I'll put a footnote in the San Francisco entry indicating that it is part of a larger metro area. Polaron 14:03, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  San Francisco Metro Area 

message: In Cairo article it says has "a metropolitan area population of approximately 15.2 million people", so why is it 11 million in this page? I think there is a mistake. Ashs2005 16:50, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cairo statistics need to be updated 

message: I'd like to make an argument to include the well-known Randstad metropolitan area in The Netherlands. It has a reported population from 6.6M up to 7.1M, depending on whether to include surrounding areas or not. Have a look at Randstad or externally this (including a pdf: here) or this.
I'd say sufficient sources to put the Randstad in around place 30.Mhaesen 11:41, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've given my argument, I've stated my sources. No reaction. Silence implies approval, so I'm going to be bold and change the list Mhaesen 15:01, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Randstad Area, The Netherlands 

message: It's impossible to reach more than 3.7 Mio inhabitants for the Rhein-Main-Area in Germay on 1570 km².
Around central city Frankfurt (Umlandverband) there are ~ 2.1 Mio inhabitants on ~ 2400 km².
Frankfurt as city alone has ~ 650000 inhabitants on its 248 km² area.
:It is possible that the land area listed is wrong. The definition is Darmstadt, Frankfurt am Main, Offenbach am Main and Wiesbaden plus immediately surrounding towns/cities, which means most of the Darmstadt region. Polaron 16:19, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rhein-Main 

message: Go to the Houston page here on the Wikipedia and the article says Houston is the largest city in Texas and the fourth largest in the United States, but this list has Dallas-Ft.Worth as larger than Houston as well as Philly. They simply are not. The Houston-Galveston area is known by everyone in Texas to be lItalic textarger than Dallas-Ft.Worth. In fact, it was recently reported in Texas newspapers that San Antonio has passed Dallas in population. If one was to properly rank Texas metro areas it would look like this: 1. Houston-Galveston 2. San Antonio 3. Dallas-Ft.Worth 4. Austin
*Response It would be nice if you would ~~~~ your responses.. so that information can get back to you.  You're talking about municipal population, not metropolitan population.  Dallas-Fort Worth is larger than Houston-Galveston-Huntsville, and San Antonio is completely dwarfed by them.  San Antonio Metro is still under 2 million.. Houston's metro is a little over 5, and DFW just passed 6.  The article is accurate.  Drumguy8800 20:06, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Houston 

message: I don't know how I haven't manage to find this page until now - it is almost a 100% reproduction of the battle I've been going through on the Paris page.
"Apples to Oranges" is about the best title anyone can give to "metropolitan area" comparisons. Every country has its own appellation for its own statistical accumulations compiled on criteria deemed most adaptive to their economy and style of living. Yet most geography-oriented English Wiki pages, when speaking of their version of their major cities' "area of influence", use the "metropolitan area" term as a direct translation of their respective statistical appellations - this is a source of confusion for "in-page" comprehension, and often a source of confusion period. If the use of this sort of statistic is called for, it would be most comprehensive (especially for an uninformed reader) that its local term come first with a link to an explanatory page, then perhaps place (metropolitan area) (if absolutely needed) after it with its link to the "metropolitan area" page that explains quite clearly the international ambiguity of its meaning (eg: commuter activity in Paris' aire urbaine (metropolitan area) ). If it were a simple question of miscomprehension it would be fine, but I've noticed that many "big city" pages have engaged in a "bigger than" battle without end. Paris vs. London is the one I'm most aware of.
For example, the French INSEE statistics institute's "aire urbaine", quite literally translated to "metropolitan area" throughout the Paris page (and used in fact as a theme for the entire article), is (basically) an "area of commuter influence" that includes "communes that have 40% of their populations commuting with communes that have 40% of their populations commuting with a central agglomeration ("unité urbaine")" (INSEE). This indirect inclusion scheme eglobes an area, larger than the Île-de-France administrative region, that is 45% farmland. Now how can this feasibly be compared to the "metropolitan area" of New York or London? 
As far as I can see, any city comparisons outside of "agglomeration" data is not only silly but unsourcable. But then even agglomeration data varies: until only recently the UK sees two habitations 50m apart as being contiguous, and France 200m. Both definitions are set to 200m today, but the population density factor within is still different. Ambiguous, ambiguous, ambiguous. 
Until these differences are sorted out, I say at least base an article's info on the statistical content of administrative regions, and mention the rest in passing - and in context! THEPROMENADER 13:32, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As you can see, this list is closer to a list of urban agglomerations rather than metropolitan areas as the latter has a more varied definition worldwide. While agglomerations are not perfectly comparable, they are easier to compare across different countries compared to metropolitan areas. Note that the figures here are typically smaller than commonly listed metropolitan figures elsewhere in Wikipedia. In the case of Paris, the listed figure is a UN projection of the 1999 urban area INSEE figure. Polaron 14:50, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I see this, but this page isn't titled "List of urban areas". In any case, it is a result of original research as is not a copy of a publication in particular - in fact, all the polemic lies in the fact that there is no existing publication in existence undisputedly accomplishing the task this page tries to take on... THEPROMENADER 21:45, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The current list is a copy of one set of numbers (the 2005 projections) from the 2003 UN World Urbanization Prospects Report so it is not original research. But you are correct in that there is no "list of metropolitan areas" that is undisputed and is comparable across all areas. Polaron 22:27, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  It is a copy of that UN publication? My apologies, I have that, and should have verified before claiming anything. Sorry. THEPROMENADER 23:09, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

text:  But in that case, wouldn't it be simpler to title this page "UN list of Metropolitan areas" and in the introduction note on its failings with references to other pages on the subject? This way there would be no risk for error. But I don't really see the point of publishing lists of imprecise and contested statistics. THEPROMENADER 07:54, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Paris