Megalopolitan

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Concerning or characteristic of an extremely large city or densely populated urban complex that spans multiple municipalities
2. Of or pertaining to a vast metropolitan area with extensive urban development spread across a wide geographic region
3. Describing something associated with a sprawling megacity or immense conurbation that encompasses numerous towns and districts

Etymology: Ancient Greeks founded a city in Arcadia in the fourth century BC and named it Megalopolis, from "megas" (great) and "polis" (city). The name was a statement of ambition, chosen by a federation of Arcadian towns for their new capital. In the twentieth century, the French-born American geographer Jean Gottmann applied "megalopolis" to the chain of densely packed cities along the northeastern seaboard of the United States, stretching from Boston to Washington. The Arcadian city had been a modest provincial capital, so the modern sense inverts its scale: a Greek name meaning "great city" now describes a region made up of many cities. Megalopolitan is that noun with the suffix "-an," the same ending found in "American," and it describes people or things belonging to such a region.

Synonyms: metropolitan, urban, cosmopolitan

Antonyms: rural, provincial