Primate city

A primate city (Latin: 'prime, first rank') is the largest city in its country or region, disproportionately larger than any others in the urban hierarchy. A primate city distribution is a rank-size distribution that has one very large city with many much smaller cities and towns, and no intermediate-sized urban centers: a King effect, visible as an outlier on an otherwise linear graph, when the rest of the data fit a power law or stretched exponential function. The law of the primate city was first proposed by the geographer Mark Jefferson in 1939. He defines a primate city as being 'at least twice as large as the next largest city and more than twice as significant.' Aside from size and economic influence, a primate city will usually have precedence in all other aspects of its country's society, such as being a center of politics, media, culture and education and receive most internal migration. A primate city (Latin: 'prime, first rank') is the largest city in its country or region, disproportionately larger than any others in the urban hierarchy. A primate city distribution is a rank-size distribution that has one very large city with many much smaller cities and towns, and no intermediate-sized urban centers: a King effect, visible as an outlier on an otherwise linear graph, when the rest of the data fit a power law or stretched exponential function. The law of the primate city was first proposed by the geographer Mark Jefferson in 1939. He defines a primate city as being 'at least twice as large as the next largest city and more than twice as significant.' Aside from size and economic influence, a primate city will usually have precedence in all other aspects of its country's society, such as being a center of politics, media, culture and education and receive most internal migration. Not all countries have primate cities, but in those that do, there is debate as to whether the city serves a parasitic or generative function. The presence of a primate city in a country may indicate an imbalance in development – usually a progressive core, and a lagging periphery, on which the city depends for labor and other resources. However, the urban structure is not directly dependent on a country's level of economic development. Many of the primate cities are increasing their percentage of their country's population. This can be because the number of traditional workers have been reduced because of mechanization in the manufacturing industry, agriculture, and other blue-collar industries, which are generally located throughout all of the country. At the same time, the number of educated employees in service business such as politics, economy, culture, media, and higher education has been rising, and those sectors are often located in the capital where the power and money is concentrated. Many alpha world cities are considered national and/or regional primate cities. They include the two alpha++ world cities of London in the United Kingdom (national) and New York City in the United States (regional). The U.S., however, has never had any primate city on a national scale. In addition, for example Budapest, Jakarta, Lima, Mexico City, and Seoul have also been described as primate cities within their respective countries. Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, has been called 'the most primate city on Earth', being roughly thirty-five times larger than Thailand's second-largest city of Nakhon Ratchasima. Taking the concept from his examination of the primate city during the 2010 Thai political protests and applying it to the role that primate cities play if they are national capitals, Fong's study noted that when primate cities like Bangkok function as national capitals, they are inherently vulnerable to insurrectionary dynamics by the subaltern, and the dispossessed. He cites the simple fact that most primate cities serving as national capitals contain major headquarters for the country. Thus, logistically, it is rather 'efficient' for national targets to be contested since they are all located within one major urban environment. Urban primacy indicates the ratio of the primate city to the next largest i.e the second largest in a country or region. In other words, urban primacy can be defined as the central place in an urban or city network that has acquired or obtained a great level of dominance. The level of dominance is measured by population density and the number of functions offered. Higher functions and population will result in higher dominance