# Cities inner city sizes



## VECTROTALENZIS (Jul 10, 2010)

*Shanghai*

I'm not completely sure if this is correct but I am going with that the inner ring expressway wraps around downtown Shanghai. Though there are areas within the inner ring the may not be so urban as there area areas just outside the expressway that feel lively and urban. But so is it with all cities in the world.










*114.09 km²*


With almost all cities in the world, why is it always an expressway that works as a barrier between what is not the central and what is? There can be areas outside the expressway that can feel more urban than areas inside. But they are still considered to be outside the "outer city". Why is that? Why must we have that clear division? I myself feel that I want to know what's the inner city and want to have a clear barrier.


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

*Tokyo*

Here is an approximate size for Tokyo. It basically follows the Yamanote line ring around central Tokyo resulting in a massive city centre - probably one of the worlds biggest. 



Total area: *115.59 km²*


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## Rebasepoiss (Jan 6, 2007)

*Tallinn* - pop. 400,000

Tallinn has grown quite lately so the core of the city is very small - 3.7km²


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## earthJoker (Dec 15, 2004)

Zürich is around 9km². Not easy to define where it ends. Conservatively you would only call the "district 1" center then it's only 1.8 km²


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## eddeux (Jun 16, 2010)

Interesting, there is only a 1.5 km² difference between Tokyo & Shanghai's inner city area.


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## gabrielbabb (Aug 11, 2006)

Well in Mexico there is not such a thing like inner city, because there are lots of city centres in the same city, but according to the Mexican constitution the city of Mexico is only inside the Federal District so every single urban part on it is the "inner city", the others are just satellite cities, but it would be too big.

So considering the interior Circuit it would have an area of about 92km2, and is just in the Federal District 











If we talk about the Periférico which is the middle sized circuit it would be more about 408km2 which is in the Federal District and in the State of Mexico


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## woutero (Jan 14, 2008)

Traditionally for Amsterdam the Inner City is defined as the city that was built within the final set of defense walls/canals that was built in the 1600s. The Singelgracht is the canal that is still the boundary of the borough of Amsterdam-Centrum. Along this canal a set of bastions, city gates and wind mills were built. It formed the edge of the city for over 2 centuries until the mid 1800s.

The area is just over 8 m2, and currently has 81.000 inhabitants.


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## Myouzke (May 24, 2009)

*Beijing*
The inner city follows the 3rd Ring Road around Beijing. 
The inner city area: *157.87 km²*









The older inner city follows the 2nd Ring Road around Beijing. 
The older inner city area: *62.35 km²*


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## VECTROTALENZIS (Jul 10, 2010)

Any more?


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## PadArch (Apr 1, 2010)

how do you measure the km2?


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## Wapper (Feb 24, 2011)

Beijing looks very organized. The map may be misleading though


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

*Metro Manila*










The inner city is actually HUGE! A bit less than *195.25 km²*. 

The C-5 Highway best defines the border between the city and the inner suburbs.










This is The Greater Manila Area.


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## lafreak84 (Oct 26, 2010)

Looks like the inner city is bigger than the metro area. Inner city = 195km2. Please.


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## castermaild55 (Sep 8, 2005)

Svartmetall said:


> *Tokyo*
> 
> Here is an approximate size for Tokyo. It basically follows the Yamanote line ring around central Tokyo resulting in a massive city centre - probably one of the worlds biggest.
> 
> ...




I think the inside of Tokyo's 23 Wards is appropriate
622km2


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

lafreak84 said:


> Looks like the inner city is bigger than the metro area. Inner city = 195km2. Please.


Metro Manila is one of the largest cities in the world and is part of a larger *Greater Manila Area*. The total area of Metro Manila proper alone is around 638.55 km2. This excludes the outer suburbs of its nearby provinces.

And it does has a large inner city.

Here are other maps of Metro Manila.










The areas inside and surrounding the boxes are part of the metro's inner city.










Another image of Metro Manila including the inner city and inner suburbs.










An image of Metro Manila's rapid transit system covering the inner city.










A map of The Greater Manila area including the outer suburbs of Cavite, Laguna, Rizal, Bulacan and Pampanga provinces.

A panoramic shot of Metro Manila's inner city from Antipolo. Picture taken by me.


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## Manitopiaaa (Mar 6, 2006)

Tulsa, OK, United States (USA)

City Center-








1.07 sq.mi.
~4km
3,980

Inner City-








4.58 sq.mi.
~18km
24,392

City Proper-391,906
Metro Area-988,454


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## lafreak84 (Oct 26, 2010)

Manila-X, how did you define inner city borders? Wikipedia says:
- Capital City 38.55 km2
- Metro 638.55 km2


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## isaidso (Mar 21, 2007)

14.72 km2 for downtown Toronto

I used the area loosely bounded by Bathurst to the west, Du Pont and Church to the north, the Don Valley Parkway to the east, and the waterfront to the south. I did not include Rosedale or the Islands.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

lafreak84 said:


> Manila-X, how did you define inner city borders? Wikipedia says:
> - Capital City 38.55 km2
> - Metro 638.55 km2


You are only talking about the capital city but this along does not define the entire inner city. Metro Manila's inner city or its urban core stretches far beyond The City of Manila or the country's capital. 

In fact, most economic, trade and cultural activities in the metro happen beyond Manila's city limits. 

For example, Metro Manila's main central business district is in Makati while Ortigas CBD is all the way Midtown. 

The Senate have their offices in Pasay while the House of Representatives have theirs outside the city core in the far end of Quezon City. 

EDSA, the main thoroughfare does not pass through Manila's city area. 

I would know because I'm from Metro Manila and I live here. I can easily distinguish between the city core and the suburbs. The fact I live in a suburban neighbourhood in the southern part of the city and have my studio in the urban core somewhere in Mandaluyong near Ortigas.

We are like Tokyo or Los Angeles where our city has no defined centre. In fact our urban centres are scattered out creating a large inner city.

Even New York's inner city is not limited to Manhattan or Los Angeles being limited to Downtown LA.


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## isaidso (Mar 21, 2007)

Manila-X said:


> Even New York's inner city is not limited to Manhattan or Los Angeles being limited to Downtown LA.


But New York's inner city is basically Manhattan only. The other boroughs are urban, but they're not the inner city. Inner city of Manila 195 km2? There's no way it's 5 times the size of London's or 14 times that of Toronto's.


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## Lockhart2012 (Oct 12, 2011)

That is the only disadvantages that HK and Macao have unlike their neighbours within the PRD.


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## Minato ku (Aug 9, 2005)

PadArch said:


> If you said the inner city of London is zone 1, that might give you the false impression that everything outside that is suburbia. Zone 1 corresponds more or less to the central zone.
> So we have 3 zones - central, inner and outer. It is very hard to compare these zones to other cities. For example, central London is not comparable to Manhattan or Paris Proper it is more like lower manhattan or the inner 10 or 11 arrondisements of paris. Outside this central zone, in inner london you will find dense residential areas broken up by busy/intense highstreets or clusters like camden and relieved by contained parks and green spaces like regents park. In outer London the residential areas are suburban but there are many local cores of increased urban activity - like croydon.


I agree that zone 1 is only Central London and not the whole inner city.
My problem is that in the post of SE9 we could believe that the whole inner London look like zone 1 wich is far to the truth.

While I agree that zone 1 of London is comparable with the area inside the line 2 and 6 of Paris subway, the inner London as drawed by SE9 is not at all comparable with Paris proper, what we call inner Paris (Paris intra-muros).
For having a comparable area we would need to include much of our inner suburbs, to not say all.
The areas around La Defense have more a density of inner city than the areas around Canary Wharf.

How do we define the high density or inner city area ?
This was the question I asked in the post I did for Paris.


Minato ku said:


> But in reality the high density area goes further.
> I mean that nothing in this picture is included in the traditional vision of inner Paris. :nuts:
> 
> 
> ...





PadArch said:


> I hope these pictures illustrate an example character of each zone:


In my opinion, they don't illustrate well the character of each zone.
It would be interesting to have an aerial view of a part of the zone 3.
It would more representative of most of inner London.


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## Harry (Nov 8, 2002)

Brisavoine compiled a very interesting thread a few years back called (I think) 'Leaving Paris', showing a journey from central Paris to the edge of its contiguous urban area with a Streetview picture taken every ½km. Something similar for London would probably answer Minato Ku's question.


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## PadArch (Apr 1, 2010)

Well Paris in general is a much higher density city than London. A large % of Londoners have private back gardens, and the majority of the city is 3-4 stories, compared with maybe 6-7 stories in Paris. What would be considered an inner city area in london would look a lot less dense than an equivalent inner city area in paris. But density isn't the only factor, the other factor is the usage and the life of those places.. There are areas of Paris proper for instance which are very dense, but still basically residential areas by function. Same goes for suburbs. So, for instance, the stuff you view you posted there outside la defense is indeed quite dense, but it doesn't have the other qualities of a city centre district. Paris and London really are very different cities and you can only compare certain pieces to each other, not the whole. For those reasons I think aerial view doesn't tell the whole story, because its the experience of being in a place which is more interesting - street views give a better idea of a place.


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## PadArch (Apr 1, 2010)

Harry said:


> Brisavoine compiled a very interesting thread a few years back called (I think) 'Leaving Paris', showing a journey from central Paris to the edge of its contiguous urban area with a Streetview picture taken every ½km. Something similar for London would probably answer Minato Ku's question.


Exactly, however the difficulty with that is that london is a lot less cohesive and homogenous than paris.. The view would be very different depending on which route you take. But yes, as i said before, Paris is denser and generally higher-rise than london - this is due to a different legal view of property in england during the development of london versus europe (and scotland by the way - which is why edinburgh has a more european character) that favoured development of whole-house properties rather than apartment blocks - a lot of londoners live in a house that comprises a whole plot on a terrace, with a front and back garden - something which would almost never happen in paris proper - and which is why a lot of london is limited to 4 floor housing. However density isn't the only factor as to whether an area is inner city or outer city, because each city has a different character and base density level. What you'll find in london generally are endless streets of 3-5 storey terraced buildings. From an aerial view you seen a lot more green area which is the back gardens and large trees which london possesses. These do not exist in paris, which on an aerial view looks like a huge stone with some dark lines carved into it..insanely dense, in fact it looks denser than any other city i've seen including manhattan (the skyscrapers don't show up too much on aerial view). Only a tiny part of london (the square mile) can compare with this kind of aerial appearance.


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## Harry (Nov 8, 2002)

That's true. London is an agglomeration of pre-existing settlements that has evolved organically (where as Paris' growth has been centrally planned to a greater degree, I think). To that extent, the general decrease in urban density from central London towards the outer suburbs is far from uniform.


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## spxy2 (Sep 26, 2011)

does this help?

london Canary Wharf and Paris la defence


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## PadArch (Apr 1, 2010)

Minato ku said:


> My only problem is that the picture posted SE9 shows the zone 1, it would be interesting to see the edge of the inner city.
> I do not think that the built environment stay as dense on this large area.
> 
> I am not saying that I disagree with this size of inner London but the picture with the comment are somewhat misleading.


not all of that area is zone 1.. there aren't any sudden changes in that respect - much more gradual. for instance, can you easily determine the edge of the centre in this image (it only takes up maybe 1/4 of the area):


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## Minato ku (Aug 9, 2005)

All what we see in this picture is zone 1 (I'm not talking of the bottom of the image that is almost invisible except the towers of Canary Wharf).
It is taken from Westminster, close to Hyde park.
This is inside the West End.


SE9 said:


> It stays relatively dense throughout:


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## CCs77 (Jul 30, 2008)

In Caracas, the purple area in the image below shows the space occupied for the traditional city, in other words, the area most of the city extended until 1900, with the traditional urban net of the spaniards.








Shot at 2011-10-16

But when we talk of the areas that today concentrate the principal economical activities such as major comercial areas and working places (offices) as weel as governmental institutions and most of cultural and entertainment facilities and night life zones, we should look at this other map bellow.








Shot at 2011-10-16

After the 1950's the main commercial activity began migrating from the traditional center to the newer areas east of the city. Later, they build the main line of Metro (the red line in the map) that further consolidated this trend.
Actually, practically the entire lenght of that metro line is a continuos comercial corridor, but the purple areas are the most important.


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## Harry_Harry (Jan 2, 2009)

GENIUS LOCI said:


> Inner *Milan* is generally considered the one within the so called 'Circonvallazione'
> 
> It is *28.84 km²*


And the Milan city centre which is traditionally considered the area within the old Spanish walls : 9,04 km²


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## Portvscalem (Jan 9, 2007)

I realy don´t know about my city. 

We have a very small historical centre, then we have downtown, and then what I thing could be de inner city. But we also have other secundary city centers...

Miami is a strange case... almost 140 km long urbanized area with very low density, and then a very little inner city. It should be strange for those who are living there.


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## dave8721 (Aug 5, 2004)

Portvscalem said:


> I realy don´t know about my city.
> 
> We have a very small historical centre, then we have downtown, and then what I thing could be de inner city. But we also have other secundary city centers...
> 
> Miami is a strange case... almost 140 km long *urbanized area with very low density*, and then a very little inner city. It should be strange for those who are living there.


Miami's urbanized area is the 4th densest in the US (behind LA, NY and SF). The area is almost 140km long but less than 20km wide for most of the span so the total area isn't very large (compared to most other large US urban areas). Miami's urbanized area is 1/3 as large as NY and half as large as Chicago or Atlanta.


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## Pennypacker (Mar 23, 2010)

dave8721 said:


> Miami's urbanized area is the 4th densest in the US (behind LA, NY and SF). The area is almost 140km long but less than 20km wide for most of the span so the total area isn't very large (compared to most other large US urban areas). Miami's urbanized area is 1/3 as large as NY and half as large as Chicago or Atlanta.


It isn't dense in an international sense though.


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