Centralized urban network

It is said that a State has a urban network centralized when it has only a Métropole which orders its Territoire and fulfills at the same time the political role of Capitale, economic and cultural of the country.

The France provides an example of it: Paris concentrates a sixth of the population of the country, and it is a city seven times more populated than the two following cities by the size, Lyon and Marseilles; the Parisian Agglomération concentrates 90 % of the head offices of the undertaken, two thirds of the enquiring , a third of the student , it quasi totality of the national Media, most of artistic creation, largest museums; the centralized organization of France is read on a simple road map, which shows that the French highway network is centered on Paris.

This model is most frequent in the world. He is often explained by the seniority of the existence of a centralized State and choice of his capital. It is the case of France, of the the United Kingdom, the Portugal, the Austria (with the characteristic for this State that Vienna was until 1918 the capital of an empire much larger than the Actual position).

But this model is also most frequent in the case of the States African, independent since about fifty years only, and from which cutting goes back to approximately a century: one can explain it by the fact that the Urbanisation of these countries is only recent, and that it is done with the principal profit of the capital.

If one often associates an urban network centralized with a unit State, it is not systematic: for example the Mexico and the Argentine are two Federal states whose urban network is dominated by a giant capital.

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