News tagged with metropolis

A metropolis is a very large city or urban area which is a significant economic, political and cultural center for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections and communications. The term itself is derived from Greek, in which it literally means "mother city," and was originally used to refer to the city or state which sent out a colony (as of Ancient Greece). This was later generalized to a city regarded as a center of a specified activity, or any large, important city.

New York City is often cited as the quintessential metropolis, exerting a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and entertainment and being widely regarded as one of the economic and cultural capitals of the world.

Urban areas of less than one million people are rarely considered metropolises in contemporary contexts.[citation needed] Big cities belonging to a larger urban agglomeration, but which are not the core of that agglomeration, are not generally considered a metropolis but a part of it. The plural of the word is most commonly metropolises.