City Proper - Controversy

Controversy

In some countries, city limits that act as the demarcation for the city proper are drawn very wide, or very narrow. This can be cause for recurring controversy.

List of cities by surface area lists little known cities that are larger than many countries. By area, the city of Altamira, Brazil (population 84,000) is bigger than Greece. The City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder (population 32,000) covers more area than Hungary, Portugal, Austria or Ireland. While these examples cause limited debate, cities in China are a source of continuing disagreement.

The Chinese city of Hulunbuir in Inner Mongolia is recognized as the largest city in the world by area. According to the “Urban Settlement” working paper, “in 1986, to cope with growing administrative demands at the local level, China essentially reclassified counties as cities in order to allow local city governments to control the surrounding areas.” The authors state that “the Chinese city of Chongqing is another case in point. Even though the municipal district of Chongqing has a total population of more than 30 million inhabitants, fewer than 6 million actually live in Chongqing city proper. Depending on which classification is used, Chongqing is sometimes listed as the world’s largest city and, in other cases, does not even appear in the top rung of urban population rankings.” (Note the context of "city proper.")
Yunyan Yang describes the problems one is faced with when interpreting population data of Chinese cities proper, using the example of Wuhan. “Misconceptions and Complexities in the Study of China's Cities: Definitions, Statistics, and Implications,” an article that appeared in the Journal of Eurasian Geography and Economics, illustrates and clarifies factors leading to misunderstanding and misconceptions regarding the number of inhabitants of China's major cities. (In their paper, the authors use “city proper” in the context of "city districts", and not as the larger administrative area.)

On the other side of the extreme is Metropolitan Lagos. This city has a population of nearly 8 million according to the latest census - which is debated. Official data by the Lagos State estimate the population of Metropolitan Lagos at more than 14 million. However, there is no Metropolitan Government. The Municipality of Lagos was disbanded in 1976 and divided into several Local Government Areas. As a result, the most populous city in Africa, and one of the most populous and fastest growing cities in the world can be missing from lists of cities proper. A similar situation exists in Australia, where large cities are divided into much smaller Local Government Areas.

As long as "city proper" is used as defined above, size and population density have no bearing on the meaning of the term. "City proper" is just one of several ways of describing a city, in this case using administrative boundaries. The drawing of administrative boundaries remains within the purview of a sovereign state.