Exploring Primate Cities with Google Earth

What is a Primate City?

• Answer: A city whose population is at least twice that of the next largest city in its country

Also the cultural, economic, or political center of a country Istanbul, Turkey London, England

Paris, France

Examples

How can we find every Primate City in the world?

• List all countries in the world– List all cities in each country– Find the population of each city– For each country, calculate

Primate City Ratio: largest city / second largest city• Instead…

City and Country Info

City Population Data

Primate Cities

Visualizing Primate Cities in Google Earth

Your Task

1. Choose a partner 2. Choose a primate city– Family lives there, or you are from there– You have visited– You would like to visit – Or, you know nothing about

3. Use Google Earth to explore why your city has become a primate city- Site- Situation- Draw or attraction

Physical features, landforms, climate, vegetation, availability of water, …

The location of a place relative to its surroundings…

Cultural, economic, administrative centers …

Example: Kathmandu as a Primate City

Site: In a valley around Himalayan mountain range (+ 20,000 ft)

Situation: Sits along an ancient trade route between India and Tibet

Visualizing Population with Cartograms

186,410

790,612

Use Google Earth to Mark Important Places in Your City

• Mark important places that indicate site, situation, draw/attraction

• Create a tour of your city

How to place a landmark

How to add a caption to a landmark

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How to change a landmark’s color

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How to add images to captions