Second city
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the North American comedy troupe, see The Second City.
The second city of a country is the city that is (or was) the second-most important, usually after the capital or first city, according to some criteria.
Criteria for second city status include population size, economic or commercial importance, political importance, or some cultural sense. Since it is often difficult to draw a precise boundary where cities end, deciding which city is second in a country is not always straightforward. If the cultural definition is used, then the choice of second city is highly subjective and a matter of opinion rather than fact. In many countries, more than one city might have a legitimate claim to being second city, depending on the definition or criteria used.
It is also sometimes believed, rightly or wrongly, that the second city would assume the role of capital city (as seat of government, market trading, etc.) if the capital were to be compromised by invasion or insurrection.
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[edit] Australia
In Australia, Melbourne is sometimes referred to as the second city, behind the largest city Sydney. Neither is the national capital, which is the comparatively small Canberra (compare to Washington, D.C. in the United States, or Brasília in Brazil). Sydney and Melbourne are both state capitals.
The postcodes for the state capitals were originally designated roughly in order of population size: Sydney 2000, Melbourne 3000, Brisbane 4000, Adelaide 5000, Perth 6000, Hobart 7000. (Note that the metropolitan population of Perth now far exceeds that of its eastern neighbour, Adelaide). The postcode 1000 was not originally used. Canberra's postcode is 2600, since it is surrounded by the state of New South Wales.
Within Sydney, the western suburb of Paramatta is often refferred to as Sydney's second CBD.
[edit] Canada
In Canada, Toronto was historically referred to as the second city. However, in the late 1970s it overtook Montreal in population, and the centre of the financial industry moved from St. James Street in Montreal to Bay Street in Toronto.
Each province may have a second city, but this is controversial. For example in British Columbia, Victoria is secondary in population to Vancouver despite being the provincial capital, as in the case with Quebec City and Montreal in the province of Quebec. In some provinces, however, cities are more evenly matched. In Alberta, Calgary and Edmonton are nearly equal in population, and while Edmonton is the capital, Calgary is a more important business centre (see Battle of Alberta). Similarly Saskatchewan's Regina and Saskatoon are of a similar size, while New Brunswick has three similarly sized cities, Saint John, Moncton, and Fredericton.
[edit] United Kingdom
The first city in the United Kingdom is undisputedly the capital, London. From around the time of the First World War to the present, the second largest city has been Birmingham.
Other cities that have historically been considered the UK's second city are Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool, and Manchester. These cities were prominent in the 18th and 19th centuries because of their economic importance, chiefly stemming from the role they played in overseas trade, and remain important centres in their respective regions.
[edit] United States
In the United States, the term is a nickname for Chicago, which for most of its history was second both in population and in cultural influence to New York City (although Los Angeles overtook Chicago to become the second-largest city in the 1980s). It may also refer to the "second city" emerging out of the ruins from the Great Chicago Fire in 1871. Despite Los Angeles having a larger city population than Chicago, Los Angeles covers an area of nearly 475 sq miles, while Chicago only covers 227 sq miles, yet Los Angeles only has a little more than a million people more than the Windy City. (Notably though, the Los Angeles greater metropolitan area is more densely populated than the Chicago greater metropolitan area.) Chicago still remains an important cultural and business capital in the United States.
