Search

The aim of this paper is the study of the functional and demographic hierarchy in the metropolitan area of Malaga (Spain). For this purpose, we will use analysis techniques commonly used in urban geography, such as the Davies index and the rank-size rule. The metropolitan area of Malaga consists of a polycentric area with two sub-centres of major functional and demographic importance: the cities of Malaga and Marbella, as well as some urban sub-centres located on the urban coastal axis. All of them share a functional specialisation based on tourist activity that generates important synergies in other sectors within the area. Among the results obtained, we highlight the functional primacy of the city of Malaga followed, at some distance, by the city of Marbella, but with an absence of demographic hierarchy, which is the result of an unequal balance between flows of inputs and outputs between the urban coast and its rural inland hinterland, due to the orographic difficulties that hinder exchanges between the two areas, conditioned by the difficulty in land communications between the rural inland and the urban coast, with the exception of the sub-centres of the Guadalhorce valley, which is considered the natural expansion area of the Malaga metropolis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]