Originally posted by Maju
That's only because of arbitrary municipal definitions. I guess an study like this shoud consider connurbations (metroareas) and not just municipalities (which are extremely arbitrary).
Madrid is a huge municipal territory (having annexed most of its metropolitan area) while Barcelona's is tiny (having annexed nothing in a century). Guess the same has happened with Marseilles.
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I think the studies here consider the metroarea not the city proper. Madrid is clearly the center of its metroarea, BCN isn't that obvious.
I'm pretty confident than this study is on the metroarea because Paris city proper is only 2 milion and then wouldn't deserve to be an alpha city, especialy considering the business district La Defense isn't in Paris municipality, the metroarea is over 11 milion and include La Defense.