Megalopolis, << mehg uh LOP uh lihs, >> is a region made up of two or more metropolitan areas. A metropolitan area consists of a central city that has a population of at least 50,000 and the suburbs that surround the city. Metropolitan areas form a megalopolis if they attract enough people and industry and then expand and begin to grow together.
The French geographer Jean Gottmann introduced the term megalopolis in 1961 to describe the urban development in the northeastern United States. The term comes from the Greek words megalo and polis, meaning great city. A major megalopolis in the United States includes the metropolitan areas of Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. Megalopolises outside the United States include the Tokyo-Yokohama-Osaka area in Japan and the Ruhr Industrial Basin in Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium.
See also Metropolitan area .
