Politics & SocietyGreek → English
Megalopolis
/ˌmɛɡəˈlɒpəlɪs/noun
A chain of cities that has grown together into one continuous urban region.
The Greek roots
μέγας
mégas
great, large
πόλις
pólis
city
Literally: “great city”
The story of the word
Megalopolis was a real address before it was a concept: a city founded in Arcadia around 370 BC as the capital of a league assembled to hold Sparta in check, named 'great city' out of hope rather than description. It never filled its walls. Lewis Mumford revived the word in 1938 for a stage in the swelling and decline of cities, and Jean Gottmann fixed the modern sense in 1961 for the unbroken urban belt running from Boston to Washington.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
metropolismegaphoneacropoliscosmopolitan
In a sentence
From the air the whole coast reads as one megalopolis with a few dark patches left in it.