Metropolitan complex
A metropolitan complex ( Metroplex ) is a metropolitan region that has emerged from several large cities . The term metropolitan complex appears in the narrower sense for metropolitan complexes in the rank of a mega-city with more than five million inhabitants that are not subject to a centralized city administration, but to a cooperative administration of the cities involved.
In comparison with the more general meaning of a metropolitan region, one assumes that the proportion of remaining rural areas between the original urban regions is low in a metropolitan complex .
Megaplex
In the (fantastic) literature and colloquial language, the terms have already experienced a further development. Originally the merged megacities like Yokohama-Tokyo were simply referred to as a metropolitan complex, but in the fantastic projection this gives rise to further urban agglomerations . Here, with claustrophobic presumption, it is not possible to leave urban life without much effort. So the city has become “mega” -size. This is where terms such as mega-city and when mega-cities and mega- complexes grow together , a metropolitan complex of mega-cities.
Intermediate linguistic forms have emerged here, the shorter the word, the greater the significance of the converging metropolitan region as a megacity. This arises because the reference to the “metro complex” is used all the more often as an epithet in order to point out the fact that not only the core cities mentioned are meant. And the more often the term is spoken, the more likely it is to be looped and shortened. Hence:
Metropolitan Region → Metropolitan Complex → Metro Complex → Metroplex → Megaplex
The term “Metroplex Tokyo Yokohama” is particularly common at the moment and stands for what is currently the largest metropolitan complex - the 23 urban districts of Tokyo alone have 9 million inhabitants and Yokohama 3.7 million, and 36.5 million people live in the metropolitan region.