Second cities

[Bonyduck Campersang]

What about countries where the capital is neither the "first" nor "second" city? Brazil, for example, where the honours go to Rio di Janeiro and Sao Paulo, respectively

 

[Samson]

What about countries where the capital is neither the "first" nor "second" city? Brazil, for example, where the honours go to Rio di Janeiro and Sao Paulo, respectively

The US is accepted as that. It does not seem a problem.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Like Brazil, Pakistan's capital was founded much later in its history. So Pakistan's first and second cities would be Karachi and Lahore, not Islamabad.

I guess that rule goes for other countries too? The US seems an outlier, though

 

[Farm Boy]

It's mostly just governmental divisions drawing lines across the great eastern megalopolis. New York sort of stands in for its heart.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I agree North American "city" population figures can be misleading, which is why I use the Australian definition of city population, which in North America I believe you call it "metro" population. This includes all of the nearby suburbs and some of the more integrated bedroom communities.

Even if you include the entire Lower Mainland, that's 3 million people, still smaller than Montreal.

I think Vancouver/Lower Mainland, has the potential to grow much more but you have to bring your house prices under control.

They've instituted various taxes, both for unoccupied houses (the owners bought the place as an investment but nobody lives there, or at least not year-round) and foreign-owned homes. They've also cracked down somewhat on flippers. It hasn't helped.

I still remember a news article about a foreign university student from China who went crying to the media that because of the new tax on foreign-owned houses, she couldn't buy a house to live in while attending university. My reaction was to wonder why she would need a house, just for herself. She never stated that it was intended to share with several other students. Apparently an apartment was out of the question - she wanted a HOUSE.

I suspect the idea was that her family gave her money to buy a house that she would live in temporarily until she finished her degree, then she would return to China and the house would either be sold or become a non-owner-occupied "investment". I didn't feel sorry for her for one nanosecond, given that some of my typing clients' living situations were 2-3 people sharing an apartment and one guy lived in an old renovated school bus (people sure noticed when he'd come to drop off or pick up his papers; he'd painted that thing all-black). While foreign-owned properties in Vancouver and Toronto aren't all the problem, they're part of it - many don't seem to care how much they pay, and that drives up prices so the people who actually live in these cities become unable to afford to live there.

 

[lymond]

Canberra is like 7th in Aussieland

DC is a very large metro ...trust me, I live there..ugh

 

[stfoskey12]

I agree North American "city" population figures can be misleading, which is why I use the Australian definition of city population, which in North America I believe you call it "metro" population. This includes all of the nearby suburbs and some of the more integrated bedroom communities.

Even if you include the entire Lower Mainland, that's 3 million people, still smaller than Montreal.

I think Vancouver/Lower Mainland, has the potential to grow much more but you have to bring your house prices under control.

In the US it is interesting, because there are two metro population figures. One is a metropolitan statistical area and one is a combined statistical area. An MSA is a bit smaller than a CSA and is typically the better option. But the Bay Area is split into the San Francisco/Oakland MSA and the San Jose MSA. Greater Los Angeles is split into the Los Angeles/Long Beach/Anaheim MSA and the Riverside/San Bernardino MSA. So sometimes the CSA makes more sense when talking about population figures.

 

[amadeus]

What about countries where the capital is neither the "first" nor "second" city? Brazil, for example, where the honours go to Rio di Janeiro and Sao Paulo, respectively

South Africa is another one if you are talking the seat of executive power. Due to a compromise on how the Union was founded in 1910 out of four colonies, the legislature sits in Cape Town, but the executive is in Pretoria, and their high court is in Bloemfontein. The last colony, Natal, I think got a cash bonus.

 

[Tee Kay]

South Africa is another one if you are talking the seat of executive power. Due to a compromise on how the Union was founded in 1910 out of four colonies, the legislature sits in Cape Town, but the executive is in Pretoria, and their high court is in Bloemfontein. The last colony, Natal, I think got a cash bonus.

Bloemfontein is tiny compared to the other two and the highest court isn't even based there anymore, it's in Johannesburg now.

 

[REDY]

Czech Republic has Brno, the city with the biggest phallus in the Czech Republic.

In Austria I would say its fight between Graz (biggest) and Salzburg(history).
In Germany its not that clear for me. Hamburg, Frankfurt or Munich are obvious contenders, but each represents distinctive part of culture and quality.
Undisputed are Krakow for Poland and Košice for Slovakia. They most important in the history and also simply the biggest.

 

[bene_legionary]

Christchurch should be NZ’s second city. But Auckland has the largest population and economy, while Welly has the political capital. Christchurch meanwhile has the 2nd biggest population but gets much less funding and attention for what we give to the government. Combined with our seeming unluckiness in events and the rest of the country gives us a bad rep for things outside our control.

 

[Samson]

If we are talking "metropolitan area" then Birmingham has to be bigger. I am not sure how big, this is someones definition of West midlands, and is 2.8 million people. I am sure Coventry is not Birmingham, but this has to be closer, right?

On similar vein, what about Germany? If we are joining metro areas is the Ruhr Valley the "second city"?

If LA is one city:

 

[Arwon]

Sydney and Melbourne are virtually the same city by any reasonable global standard, so there's that. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a more similar pair of the two largest cities in a country, especially where neither is the captial.

 

[Bestbank Tiger]

I too reluctantly give it to Los Angeles.

Chicago crossed my mind, but nope. Houston, but more nope. Boston for historical reasons, but super nope. A united Bay Area? Nope — foreigners don't even give us #1 in our state. Dallas/Miami/Seattle? Nope. DC? Not a chance. We start getting way into the weeds with claims of being second only to NYC. Detroit, Bmore, St Louis, the Twin Cities... Denver lol.

But Chicago is #3 and could be #2.

Chicago has the nickname.

New Orleans has international recognition and a unique culture.

 

[amadeus]

Some obvious ones that come to my mind: Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and Benghazi, Libya.

 

[Tee Kay]

Christchurch should be NZ’s second city. But Auckland has the largest population and economy, while Welly has the political capital. Christchurch meanwhile has the 2nd biggest population but gets much less funding and attention for what we give to the government. Combined with our seeming unluckiness in events and the rest of the country gives us a bad rep for things outside our control.

I didn't know until I started looking things up for this thread that Christchurch is bigger than Wellington.

Didn't even get to host any World Cup games last year, even Dunedin got to host

 

[bene_legionary]

Didn't even get to host any World Cup games last year, even Dunedin got to host

That’s because 13 years after the earthquakes we still lack the sporting facilities for international events. We are now building a new stadium, at significant cost and controversy….. and it may still be smaller than the (newish) Dunedin one, will need to check up on that.

Meanwhile Auckland has had plans of getting either an Eden Park revamp or an entirely new stadium coming in the next few years. Oh well…

 

[warpus]

Canada? Well, Ottawa is the capital, but nobody thinks of it as our first city. That's just for politicians and Remembrance Day ceremonies at the National War Memorial. Actual first place goes to Toronto.

The second city, depending on which half of the country people live in and what language they usually speak, would either be Montreal or Vancouver.

For Canada it's definitely Montreal, IMO. It's the second largest city in Canada, the hub of the French-speaking part of the country, and an major regional economic, cultural & transportation hub. It also played a much larger role in Canadian history overall and used to be (since taken over by Toronto) Canada's main economic and financial centre, where all large companies set up their Canadian HQ. Vancouver metro also has about 1.7 million less people. That's almost two Ottawas!

In the case of Poland, the obvious choice is Kraków, which was the Polish capital for about 600 years. As such it is a natural cultural and economic hub. It IS Poland's second largest city by population if you exclude the metro, but looking at metro population stats it might appear that it has competition in the second city category (which it doesn't)

In the case of metro population the largest city in Poland is Katowice (about 70km from Kraków!), with about 4.3 million people living in the Polish part of the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Area. It is basically Poland's version of the Ruhrgebiet, and just to be clear it probably makes sense to focus in on the 3M or so people who live in the officially designated Katowice metro. Warsaw's metro population comes in second and Kraków places third. However, Katowice has a far less important and impressive city centre, it's basically a crapload of cities and towns all cuddling. Katowice by itself takes the spotlight - but each one of the cities around it has a city centre as well. It's not nearly as centralized as Kraków, which gets no cuddle action, and has a large tourist draw due to its history. Katowice gets more of a focus in terms of being an industrial hub, while both cities share transportation hub duties in the region IIRC. Overall Kraków outshines Katowice to a decent degree in the region as well as in the country.

Some people might point to Tri-City(Gdańsk+Gdynia+Sopot) or Łódź as a candidate for the Polish second city, but that's probably just local pride speaking. One of those is most likely the Polish third city though. Katowice is just too disjointed to be in the hunt for any of these titles, IMO, even the Tri-City area is a lot more compact with 3 distinct city centres and urban areas that are mainly connected.

Let me throw this out there though: What is Singapore's second city?

 

[Verbose]

Sweden:
Gothenburg (Göteborg) hands down.

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

US is LA
Agree that Malaysia is George Town
Switzerland is Geneva
Italy is Milan
Canada is Montreal
Ireland is Cork