Metroplex

For other uses, see Metroplex (disambiguation).

A metroplex is a contiguous metropolitan area that has more than one principal anchor city of near equal size or importance.

The term was coined to specifically describe the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. According to the North Texas Commission (NTC), the term originated from an ad agency's portmanteau of the terms "metropolitan" and "complex". The NTC copyrighted the term "Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex" in 1972 as a replacement for the previously-ubiquitous "North Texas".

Urban areas with smaller secondary anchor cities are not considered metroplexes, such as Mexico City, New York City, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, and Phoenix.

Australia

• Gold Coast, Queensland
• Hunter Region, New South Wales

China

• Beijing-Tianjin
• Shanghai-Hangzhou-Nanjing, i.e., "Hu-Ning-Hang" which is usually used in Chinese news.
• Canton-Shamchun-Hong Kong-Macau, major cities of the Pearl River Delta region

Germany

• The Ruhr area, consisting of Dortmund, Essen, Duisburg, Bochum, Gelsenkirchen, Oberhausen and other cities

Japan

• Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto

Netherlands

• Amsterdam-The Hague-Rotterdam, also called Randstad or Edge City

Poland

• Katowice urban area: a large industrial region in Upper Silesia, with a population of around 3 million people. Although it is named after the administrative capital Katowice, other large cities such as Sosnowiec, Gliwice, Zabrze, Ruda Śląska, Rybnik, Tychy, Dąbrowa Górnicza, Chorzów, Jaworzno and Jastrzębie-Zdrój are included as well as numerous other smaller towns such as Świętochłowice, Wodzisław Śląski and Oświęcim among many others.

• Tricity: consists of the cities of Gdynia, Gdańsk and Sopot.

Serbia

• Belgrade-Novi Sad-Pančevo

South Korea

• Seoul, Incheon, Seongnam, Ilsan and other cities in the Gyeonggi.

Taiwan

• Tainan-Kaohsiung

Turkey

• Tekirdağ-Istanbul-Izmit-Adapazarı-Yalova-Bursa, also known as Eastern Marmara Metroplex
• Adana-Mersin Metropolitan Area

United Arab Emirates

• Dubai-Sharjah

United Kingdom

• Bedford-Kempston
• Blackburn-Burnley
• Central Lancashire: (City of) Preston, parts of Chorley, Fulwood, Leyland, Walton-le-Dale, Chorley Rural District and Preston Rural District
• Medway: Gillingham-Rochester-Chatham
• Nottingham-Derby
• South Hampshire metropolitan area: Southampton-Portsmouth
• South East Dorset Conurbation: Bournemouth-Poole
• West Yorkshire Urban Area: Leeds-Bradford
• Great Western Cities:

Bristol-Cardiff-Newport

United States

In the United States, the term "Metroplex" most often refers to the Dallas–Fort Worth area. Other metropolitan areas in the U.S. that may locally be called a "metroplex" are:

• Baltimore-Washington, Maryland/District of Columbia
• Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, North Carolina, more often called "The Triangle"
• Gulfport-Biloxi, Mississippi
• Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota, more often called the "Twin Cities"
• San Bernardino-Riverside, California, more often called the Inland Empire or the Twin Cities of the West
• San Jose-Oakland-San Francisco, California, more often called the "Bay Area"
• Tampa-St. Petersburg, Florida, referred to together as Tampa Bay
• Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, also known as Florida's "Gold Coast"
• Winston-Salem–Greensboro–High Point, North Carolina, more often called the "Piedmont Triad"
• Huntsville–Athens–Decatur–Florence, Alabama, more often called the "Tennessee Valley" area or "The Shoals", referring to nearby Muscle Shoals, Alabama
• Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC more often called "Hampton Roads" and also known as the Tidewater Region
• Daytonnati, a convergence of the urban areas of both Dayton and greater Cincinnati
• Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, conventionally called "North Texas"
• Cleveland–Akron, Ohio, also known as Northeastern Ohio

Multinational

Africa

• -:Kinshasa–Brazzaville

Americas

• -: Detroit–Windsor
• -: El Paso–Juárez
• -: Golden Horseshoe–Buffalo
• -: Laredo–Nuevo Laredo
• -: Matamoros–Brownsville
• -: San Diego–Tijuana

Asia

• -: Singapore–Johor Bahru

Europe

• -: Copenhagen–Malmö
• -: Görlitz-Zgorzelec
• -: Vienna–Bratislava

See also

• Megalopolis (city type)
• Megacity

• (Polish)/(English) Powierzchnia i ludność w przekroju terytorialnym w 2008 – Central Statistical Office in Poland