Territorial Review Copenhagen - Region Hovedstaden

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Denmark is one of the finest examples in the OECD of a country with an
evident hegemonic metropolitan area. Not only is Copenhagen the largest
metropolitan area and the political capital, but it is also the dominant
economic and cultural centre. This is true of several OECD countries, but
different from such countries as the United States, Italy and Germany, where
these functions are dispersed over several cities. Copenhagen is also larger
than would have been predicted by a model of city size distribution that
holds empirically for many countries. This model posits an inverse
relationship between the size of a city and the number of cities that are this
size. Denmark presents an exception to this empirically tested model:
although the model holds well for medium-sized and small cities in
Denmark, Copenhagen turns out to be larger than would have been predicted
(Knudsen, 2001). The large population share of Copenhagen metropolitan
region (44%) translates into an even higher share of national economic
production: almost half of the national economy. Of the 78 metropolitan
areas in the OECD that form part of the OECD Metropolitan Database
(Figure 1.7), Copenhagen has the fourth-highest share in the national
economy. 8
Figure 1.6. Map of the Øresund Region