Upper Silesian metropolitan area
Slezská Metropolitní oblast | |
---|---|
Coordinates: 50°05′N 18°45′E / 50.083°N 18.750°E | |
Country | Poland, Czech Republic |
Region | Silesian Voivodeship (Poland), Moravian-Silesian Region (Czech Republic) |
Largest cities |
Ostrava Katowice Sosnowiec Gliwice Zabrze Bielsko-Biała Bytom |
Area | |
• Metro | 5,400 km2 (2,100 sq mi) |
Population (2015)
[1] | |
• Metro | 5,008,000 |
• Metro density | 930/km2 (2,400/sq mi) |
GDP | |
• Metro | €75.0 billion (2021) |
Time zone | UTC+1 ( CET) |
The Katowice-Ostrava metropolitan area [3] [4] (also known as Upper Silesian-Moravian metropolitan area [a] or Upper Silesian urban-industrial agglomeration [5]) is a polycentric metropolitan area in southern Poland and northeastern Czech Republic, centered on the cities of Katowice and Ostrava, and has around 5 million inhabitants. [1] Geographically, it is located mainly in Upper Silesia, with small parts of the area also in the historical regions of Moravia and Lesser Poland. Administratively, it is located in the three administrative units ( NUTS-2 class): mainly Silesian Voivodeship and a small western part of Lesser Poland Voivodeship in Poland, and also a small eastern part of Moravian-Silesian Region in the Czech Republic.
The metropolitan area lies within the Upper Silesian Coal Basin. The Upper Silesian metropolitan area (5.3 million people), together with nearby Kraków metropolitan area [6] [7] (1.3 million [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] people) and Częstochowa metropolitan area [6] (0.4 million [8] [9] [10] people), create a greater Kraków-Katowice-Ostrava metropolitan region covering 7 million people.
Upper Silesian metropolitan area has a population of 5,294,000 (2002), with 4,311,000 (81.43%) in Poland (the Upper Silesian polycentric metropolitan area) and 982,000 (18.57%) in the Czech Republic (Ostrava Functional Urban Area). [13] According to Polish Scientific Publishers (PWN) area is 5,400 km², with 4,500 km² (83.33%) in Poland and 900 km² (16.67%) in the Czech Republic. [14] According to the Brookings Institution, area has a population of 5,008,000 (2015). [1]
The area consists of several Functional Urban Areas (FUA), each of which is defined as a core Morphological Urban Area (MUA) based on population density plus the surrounding labour pool, i.e. a metropolitan area. This area contains the following FUAs: [13]
Data may vary depending on the source, example for same the Katowice city exist sources for 3.5 million people; [15] [16] for the Rybnik – 507,000, [10] while for the Ostrava – 1,153,876. [9]
Historically, most of the area was characterized by heavy industry since the age of industrialisation in the late 19th and early 20th century. In addition to coal, Upper Silesia also contains a number of other minable resources (methane, cadmium, lead, silver and zinc). About 70 billion tons of coal resources are available up to a depth of 1000 meters and the conditions for extraction are good. [14]
Contrary to most other European cross-border polycentric metropolitan regions, Katowice-Ostrava has no established cross-border cooperation project, structure, or institution of metropolitan ambition. [17]
Two international airports – Katowice Airport and Leoš Janáček Airport Ostrava – serve the area.
High-speed rail link between Katowice and Ostrava is scheduled to be completed by the year 2030. [18] It will cut down the travel time between the two cities to 30 [19]-35 [18] minutes.
Regional trains are operated by Koleje Śląskie, most importantly serving Katowice, Rybnik, Racibórz, Bielsko-Biała, and Cieszyn in Poland, and the railway junction station in Bohumín near Ostrava in Czechia. [20]
Polish A1 and Czech D1 motorways connect the urban areas of Katowice, Rybnik and Ostrava. Bielsko-Biała is linked with Cieszyn by the Expressway S52, while connection to Katowice urban area via Expressway S1 is in construction.
^ ESPON used in "ESPON project 1.4.3" two almost identical names: Upper Silesian-Moravian metropolitan area [21] and Silesian-Moravian polycentric metropolitan area. [13]