conurbation
/ˌkɒnəˈbeɪʃ(ə)n
/noun
An extended urban area, typically consisting of several towns merging with the suburbs of a central city: the major conurbations of London and Birmingham...
- The almost relentless growth in property crime of recent decades has affected the whole country - rural areas, small towns, provincial cities, and major conurbations.
- Areas outside the major conurbations and the corridors linking them are still deprived of much necessary infrastructure.
- Each category of settlement - the hamlets, the villages, the towns, the cities, the conurbations - appears to have its own characteristic scale of distance.
Origin
Early 20th century: from con- 'together' + Latin urbs, urb- 'city' + -ation.
urbane from mid 16th century:
This word was first used in the sense ‘urban’; it comes from Latin urbanus ‘belonging to the city’, from urbs ‘city’, the source of urban (early 17th century) and conurbation (early 20th century). Suburban appears in the early 17th century used literally for ‘relating to a suburb’ (an LME word meaning ‘outside the city’). The disparaging sense appears in 1817 with Byron's ‘vulgar, dowdyish, and suburban’.