Usage
In its strict sense, city proper is used as a technical term in demography, the statistical study of human populations. Under the title "World Urbanization Prospects", the United Nations issues every two years estimates and projections of the urban and rural populations of all countries of the world. The book defines the population of a city proper as "the population living within the administrative boundaries of a city." The book continues to say that "city proper as defined by administrative boundaries may not include suburban areas where an important proportion of the population working or studying in the city lives."
In demography, city proper is one of the three basic concepts used to define urban areas and populations. The other two are urban agglomeration, and the metropolitan area. In addition, there are Census Statistical Areas and permutations thereof.
A United Nations University working paper titled “Urban Settlement” reviews the most commonly used data sources, and highlights the difficulties inherent in defining and measuring the size of urban versus rural populations. It says: “The city proper is determined by legal and administrative criteria, and typically comprises only those geographical areas that are part of a legally defined, and often historically-established administrative unit. However, many urban areas have grown far beyond the limits of the city proper, necessitating other measures. An urban agglomeration is the de facto population contained within the contours of a contiguous territory inhabited at urban density levels without regard to administrative boundaries’. Urban agglomerations are thus determined by density: the agglomeration ends where the density of settlement drops below some critical threshold. A still more comprehensive concept is the metropolitan area.”
In short, there is no "right" way to define a city or municipality. "City proper" is one of the different ways.
Read more about this topic: City Proper
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