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Official and “Real” Cities: The Case Study of Moscow Metropolitan Area

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Abstract—

This article considers methodological approaches to delimitation of cities and towns and criteria of such delimitation in the case of a large urban agglomeration based on the example of the Moscow metropolitan area. It is shown that despite some level of imprecision, mobile network operator data is a useful tool for identifying “real” cities and towns. The study uses a 500 × 500 m cell as a basic territorial unit, which helps to delineate the borders of cities and towns closer to their “physical” limits and also obtain more accurate population values for these cities and towns. The results of testing several approaches to delimitation of city/town borders show that the best performance is achieved with a method based on the indicators of population size in continuous residential development zones (over 15 000 people) and population density (over 1000 people/km2). Current and former borders of settlements are used as a supplementary criterion: despite their subjective nature, these borders have an observable barrier function. Application of the proposed methodology to the Moscow region resulted in identification of 92 “real” cities and towns in the area, as opposed to 76 officially recognized cities and towns (excluding Moscow in its old borders). Along with some of the official cities and towns, the delineated “real” cities and towns include large urban-type settlements and villages, cities and towns that are officially considered part of other settlements, and conglomerates of several small settlements, including some on the territory of New Moscow. The belt-sector structure of the locations of “real” towns and cities replicates the pattern of the urban settlement network with an increased concentration in short-distance suburbs and in the eastern sector. Compared to mobile network operator data, the data recorded by the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) for both the identified “real” and the official cities and towns of the area has lower population values for hubs located under 40 km from the Moscow Automobile Ring Road and higher population values for remote cities and towns.

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Notes

  1. Sewerage coverage is often called an indicator of “household urbanization” ( Gorod …, 2001; etc.).

  2. Chislennost’ naseleniya Rossiiskoi Federatsii po munitsipal’nym obrazovaniyam na 1 yanvarya 2020 goda (Population of the Russian Federation by municipalities as of January 1, 2020), Moscow: Rosstat, 2020. https://rosstat.gov.ru/compendium/document/13282.

  3. The data are provided by the Department of Information Technologies of Moscow.

  4. Moscow oblast Law dated January 31, 2013 No.11/2013-ОZ On the administrative-territorial structure of Moscow oblast.

  5. Resolution on changing the borders between Moscow and Moscow oblast of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation dated December 27, 2011 No. 560-SF On approval of changing the border between the federal subjects federal city of Moscow and Moscow oblast.

  6. Chislennost’ naseleniya Rossiiskoi Federatsii po munitsipal’nym obrazovaniyam na 1 yanvarya 2020 goda (Population of the Russian Federation by municipalities as of January 1, 2020), Moscow: Rosstat, 2020. https://rosstat.gov.ru/compendium/document/13282.

  7. Within this study the boundaries of the city of Moscow are taken as all territories within the MKAD in order to include the territories of the last two absorption waves in the analysis of the presence of “real” cities and towns.

  8. Chislennost’ naseleniya Rossiiskoi Federatsii po munitsipal’nym obrazovaniyam na 1 yanvarya 2020 goda (Population of the Russian Federation by municipalities as of January 1, 2020), Moscow: Rosstat, 2020. https://rosstat.gov.ru/compendium/document/13282.

  9. Rosstat data record only 6.1 million residents for this pool of settlements.

  10. For more information about the reasons for discrepancies between Rosstat data and actual population sizes, see the publications by E.A. Andreev (2012) and R.A. Babkin (2020) on using mobile network operator data for the purposes of adjusting population indicators.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors are grateful to the Department of Information Technologies of Moscow for the opportunity to use their data on the movements of mobile network subscribers for this research.

Funding

The sections “Previous Research”and “Materials and methods” were prepared by A.G. Makhrova as part of the research state assignment to the Faculty of Geography, Moscow State University ((topic no. 1.17 “Modern dynamics and factors of socio-economic development of regions and cities of Russia and the countries of the Near Abroad”).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Moscow State University, Faculty of Geography, 119991, Moscow, Russia

    A. G. Makhrova

  2. Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, 115093, Moscow, Russia

    R. A. Babkin

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  1. A. G. Makhrova
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  2. R. A. Babkin
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Correspondence to A. G. Makhrova or R. A. Babkin.

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Translated by A. Ovchinnikova

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Makhrova, A.G., Babkin, R.A. Official and “Real” Cities: The Case Study of Moscow Metropolitan Area. Reg. Res. Russ. 12, 508–519 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1134/S2079970522700241

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