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Preferred term

metropolitan areas  

Definition

  • Metropolitan areas are large population centers (central cities) together with their adjacent zones of influence, where influence may be measured by levels of commuting to the central city or by commercial ties and media penetration—thus typically encompassing rural areas and physically separate satellite towns that are economically integrated with the core city. Metropolitan areas were an innovation of the U.S. Census, first called “metropolitan districts” in 1930 and only fully developed as “metropolitan areas” for the 1950 Census. [Source: Encyclopedia of Geography; Metropolitan Area]

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https://concepts.sagepub.com/social-science/concept/metropolitan_areas

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