What's the difference between urban agglomeration and metropolitan area in China? Can you describe it in detail?

The three major urban agglomerations in China are Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan, and there are also three metropolitan areas. In fact, urban agglomeration and metropolitan area are both appellations for such urban dense areas, and there is no substantive difference. The urban agglomeration emphasizes the overall combination of cities, while the metropolitan area emphasizes the prominent role of individual cities, such as Shanghai in the Yangtze River Delta, Hong Kong in the Pearl River Delta and Beijing in Beijing, Tianjin and Tangshan.

I extracted the comments of relevant scholars.

Since gotman used "Megalopolis" to define the urban agglomeration in the northeast of the United States, this ancient Greek word gradually broke away from various complicated usages and became a proper noun. In foreign theoretical circles, it has become common sense to use this word to express the aggregation of many big cities like Boshua.

However, when Goethe's theory of urban agglomeration was introduced into China, the word "urban agglomeration" could not find a suitable Chinese expression. For a time, various translations such as "metropolitan area", "metropolitan belt", "metropolitan belt/metropolitan continuous belt" and "urban agglomeration" appeared. As for the names of cities in the Yangtze River Delta, there are not only the sixth urban agglomeration according to foreign usage, but also the "metropolitan circle" of Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan and the cities around the Bohai Sea and the Pearl River Delta. The academic circles are arguing endlessly, and the onlookers are not clear.

Yu Hongsheng, an expert devoted to related research, believes that although the physical spatial layout of metropolitan area, urban agglomeration and urban sprawl is not much different, it is meaningful to distinguish these concepts from the theoretical analysis of institutional economics. Yu Hongsheng pointed out that using "metropolitan area" to describe the urban agglomeration in the Yangtze River Delta implies the concept of "first city", and the relationship between cities in the circle can only be "main-end", and the development result cannot be equal and coordinated development of all cities. In the final analysis, the concept of "metropolitan area" has not jumped out of the administrative system. The formulation of "urban agglomeration" belongs to the urban hierarchical scale system, in which the relationship between cities and urban agglomerations is "network-node", with equal status and complementary functions, and it is also the easiest to popularize "* * *".

Although many scholars believe that "metropolitan belt" is a relatively standardized translation of "mega-city" in Chinese, this concept still has its shortcomings when used in the Yangtze River Delta region. Because "belt" refers to a long and narrow area, and the cities in the Yangtze River Delta are clustered in blocks.

More importantly, Professor Changning of the Institute of Urban and Regional Development of East China Normal University, who introduced guttman Theory to China for the first time, pointed out that the dynamic mechanism of urban agglomeration reflected by "metropolitan area" and "metropolitan area" is also different. The formation of "metropolitan belt" is driven by metropolis, and the whole region is formed by the diffusion and connection of core cities. For example, in Boshua urban agglomeration, the boundary between Boston and new york is quite blurred. "Metropolitan area" embodies a top-down development, such as Jiangsu and Zhejiang in the Yangtze River Delta, where the county economy is developed. Although there is a close relationship between all localities and surrounding big cities, they are mainly counties (cities). Therefore, for the Yangtze River Delta, the name "metropolitan area" is not so much a "metropolitan area" as a "metropolitan area".

Yu Hongsheng, an expert, said that the study of urban agglomeration originated in Europe and America, with many schools, accompanied by concepts such as "combined city", "urban agglomeration", "metropolitan area" and "urban sprawl". 19 10 year, queen of American scholars. The United States once had the concepts of "urban area", "urban fringe area" and "urban hinterland". 19 15 British scholar PatrickGeddes put forward the concept of "combined city". By 1930s, British scholar C.B. Fossett put forward the concept of "urban agglomeration".

Yu Hongsheng believes that the above translations have their own merits: the name "metropolitan area" reflects the functional complementarity between cities, while the "metropolitan belt" emphasizes the gradual transition between cities, reflecting the extension of the scope of central cities and the radiation of functions, while the name "urban agglomeration" absorbs the strengths of various factions, indicating that many cities in the Yangtze River Delta should develop themselves and compete with their international counterparts after developing to a higher level of urbanization.