Large Urban Regions of the world

This database provides construction of Large Urban Regions (LUR) in the world. A Large Urban Region (LUR) can be defined as an aggregation of continuous statistical units around a core that are economically dependent on this core and linked to it by economic and social strong interdependences. The main purpose of this delineation is to make cities comparable on the national and world scales and to make comparative social-economic urban studies. Aggregating different municipal districts around a core city, we construct a single large urban region, which allows to include all the area of economic influence of a core into one statistical unit (see Rozenblat, 2020 or Rogov & Rozenblat, 2020 for Russia). In doing so we use four principal urban concepts (Pumain et al., 1992): local administrative units (Municipality or localities: MUNI), morphological urban area (MUA), functional urban area (FUA) and conurbation that we call Large Urban Region (LUR). The LURs are the spatial extensions of influence of one or several FUAs or MUAs. MUAs and FUAs are defined by various national or international sources. We implemented LURs using criteria such as the population distribution among one or several MUAs or FUAs, road networks, access to an airport, distance from a core, presence of multinational firms. FUAs and MUAs perimeters, if they form a part of a LUR, belong to a unique LUR. In this database we provide the composition of the LURs in terms of local administrative units (MUNI), Morphological Urban Area (MUA), Functional Urban Area (FUA).