Conurbation

A conurbation is a region comprising a number of cities, large towns, and other urban areas that, through population growth and physical expansion, have merged to form one continuous urban or industrially developed area. In most cases, a conurbation is a polycentric urbanised area, in which transportation has developed to link areas to create a single urban labour market or travel to work area.

The term "conurbation" was coined in 1915 by Patrick Geddes in his book Cities In Evolution. He drew attention to the ability of the then new technology of electric power and motorised transport to allow cities to spread and agglomerate together, and gave as examples "Midlandton" in England, the Ruhr in Germany, Randstad in the Netherlands, New York City–North Jersey in the United States, the Greater Tokyo Area, Taiheiyō Belt in Japan, NCR of Delhi in India, and Southern Metro Manila in the Philippines.

The term as described is used in Britain, whereas the term in the United States is most closely equivalent to "metropolitan area" as used by the Census Bureau. It may consist of a central city and its suburbs. A conurbation consists of adjacent metropolitan areas that are connected with one another by urbanization Internationally, the term "urban agglomeration" is often used to convey a similar meaning to "conurbation." A conurbation should also be contrasted with a megalopolis, where the urban areas are close but not physically contiguous and where the merging of labour markets has not yet developed.

The cities and towns of Port Louis, Beau Bassin-Rose Hill, Curepipe, Quatre Bornes, Vacoas-Phoenix and other urbanized villages form a large and central conurbation on the island of Mauritius. A large part of this conurbation is located in the district of Plaines Wilhems. This network of urban areas has a total population of 530,920 (42.9% of the island's population) as of 2011.

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