A global city is often called a metropolis.
Metropolis is a term that comes from the Latin word metropŏlis , although its more distant etymological antecedents take us to the Greek language. The concept is used to name the main city of a province or state .
For example: "After two hours of travel, we arrived at the most important metropolis in Ethiopia" , "The young people of the town decide to emigrate to the metropolis in search of a better future" , "A metropolis of such magnitude cannot have only two hospitals." » .
Different uses of the concept
In everyday language, the notion of metropolis does not have a precise and static meaning. It is usually used to name global cities , of international significance and cosmopolitan characteristics. New York , Mexico City , London , Rome , Moscow , Sydney and Beijing are examples of metropolises.
At a more limited level, the metropolis is the location that has the most importance in a regional area . Thus it is possible to speak of metropolis to name the capital of a province that exerts influence on the surrounding towns. In this sense, we could also say that metropolis is the term used to refer to a nation or city with respect to the colonies it has scattered throughout other areas of the world.
A metropolis can be a national or provincial capital.
Metropolis throughout history
There is another use of the term, associated with its historical development. In Ancient Greece , the metropolis was a city from which a colony developed. For this reason, in colonial times, the European nation that dominated territories in other areas was known as a metropolis ( Spain was the metropolis of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata , Portugal of Brazil , etc.).
Currently, left-wing political parties and certain social movements often refer to the main centers of power that dominate, directly or indirectly, peripheral countries as metropolises.
The notion in Spain
In addition to all this, we cannot ignore that the word in question is also part of the titles of various cultural and leisure supplements from various media outlets in Spain. Thus, "Metrópolis" is the name of a supplement of the newspaper "El Mundo", where readers can find a multitude of options to enjoy their free time, in terms of restaurants or shows, as well as information about areas such as music. , cinema, art or theater.
On the other hand, we would have to emphasize that in Gijón (Asturias) there is a cultural event called "Metrópoli Festival". Precisely this has been launched in this year 2014 and is identified by being made up of an extensive program of activities so that citizens and visitors can enjoy proposals such as concerts, comic book salons, video game exhibitors, gastronomy workshops...
Metropolis, a fictional city
All this without forgetting that one aspect of the term in question is Metropolis, the fictional city in which the superhero Superman lives and which appeared for the first time in the 1930s, specifically in 1939.
New York, Cleveland or Toronto seem to be the cities that inspired the creator of that character, Joe Shuster, to shape that population.