Conurbation

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˌkɒnəˈbeɪʃən/

Definitions

1. A large urban area formed by the expansion and merging of several cities or towns into one continuous metropolitan region
2. A contiguous urban region formed through the growth and unification of multiple towns and cities into a single metropolitan entity
3. An extensive urban area created when several neighboring towns and cities expand and merge, resulting in a continuous metropolitan landscape

Etymology: Patrick Geddes, the Scottish biologist, sociologist and geographer, coined "conurbation" in 1915, when he needed a name for the sprawling clusters of towns that were merging across industrial Britain. He was thinking in terms of how cities grow, not of any single city, and the word was built to describe that larger unit. The construction is transparent. It joins the Latin prefix "con-", meaning "together", with "urbs", meaning "city", and then adds the familiar "-ation" suffix that turns a process into a noun, much as "agglomeration" or "consolidation" do. The result is literally a "togethering of cities", a neat fit for a term describing towns that have grown into one another.

Synonyms: urban area, metropolis