conurbation

noun

con·​ur·​ba·​tion ˌkä-(ˌ)nər-ˈbā-shən 

: an aggregation or continuous network of urban communities

Did you know?

When Sir Patrick Geddes, a Scottish biologist turned sociologist, sat down in 1915 to write Cities in Evolution, a work on urban planning, he needed a word. How should he refer to thickly populated regions consisting of a sprawling range of cities clustered together? "Some name, then, for these city-regions, these town aggregates, is wanted…. What of 'conurbations'?" he asked rhetorically early on in his work. For his coinage, Geddes combined urbs (the Latin word for "city," already familiar in urban and suburb) with the Latin prefix con- ("together") and the English noun suffix -ation. It turned out that his word suited English speakers just fine-we've been using it ever since.

Examples of conurbation in a Sentence

a conurbation of cities along the river

Recent Examples on the Web

Sheffield, meanwhile, England’s ninth-largest population conurbation, has not produced England’s champions since the most recent of Wednesday’s four titles in 1930. —Michael Walker, The Athletic, 12 Aug. 2024

The two colleagues run into one another on the ferry to an island that’s part of the wider Oslo conurbation. —Leslie Felperin, The Hollywood Reporter, 7 Sep. 2024

However, this does not mean that the development of remote jobs will have no influence on the future face of major cities and conurbations. —Arnaud Devigne, Forbes, 21 Feb. 2024

Roads, office parks, and malls line the site now, part of the conurbation known as the Arizona Sun Corridor. —Amity Shlaes, National Review, 10 Jan. 2024

This was no easy task in the jumble of a vast nineteenth-century conurbation. —Margaret Talbot, The New Yorker, 2 Oct. 2023

Riyadh Air, based in Saudi Arabia’s namesake capital, a conurbation of 8 million people, will commence flights in 2025, aiming to serve 100 cities by 2030. —Phil Wahba, Fortune, 22 Aug. 2023

L’Asile, a conurbation of 52,000 people living mostly in rural communities, was founded in the 1930s. —Washington Post, 21 Aug. 2021

Normally this takes an hour and 40 minutes, moving across the greater Los Angeles/Orange County conurbation, but this trip... —WSJ, 24 Mar. 2020

Word History

Etymology

com- + Latin urb-, urbs city

First Known Use

1915, in the meaning defined above

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Kids Definition

conurbation

noun

con·​ur·​ba·​tion ˌkän-(ˌ)ər-ˈbā-shən 

: a number of cities or towns that come one right after the other with no countryside in between