I'd say Cork is #2 for ROI.

Edinburgh is more influential and its the capital of Scotland but Glasgow is the major city in Scotland I'd say, just like Toronto is the main city in Ontario even though Ottowa is the capital of the whole of Canada.

In Italy definitely Milan>Naples, Milan is richer than Rome and bigger than Naples plus a lot richer, its where the main stock market for the country is based etc

For France I'd go for Lyon over Marseille with the others some way behind on size even though some might be richer than Marseille.

For Australia both Sydney and Melbourne are ahead of Canberra by some distance even though Canberra is the capital, the two biggest cities there are pretty evenly matched.

China is big enough to have two #1 cities! :)

In the UK it's usually a competition between Birmingham and Manchester, the urban areas are pretty even in terms of population or economy although looking at city boundaries only then Birmingham is double the population because the boundaries of Manchester are much more tightly drawn. Glasgow would come just behind those two for size but none of the three have the political influence of Edinburgh.

Germany is probably the most tricky case, you've got Berlin, Rhein-Ruhr, Frankfurt and Munich all with their own niches of importance for one reason or another, maybe Hamburg is a bit behind those. I think Berlin is the only capital in the EU which is poorer than the national average. Obviously there are unique historical reasons for that, Germany is relatively young as a unified country and Berlin lost a lot of power/influence/economy after WWII when it was split with half behind the iron curtain and the other half isolated.

Plus also:

Japan has an obvious second city in Osaka, much larger than anywhere else outside Tokyo.

In Spain Barcelona might well be more known and visited internationally than Madrid even though it's quite a lot smaller.

India is a toss up between Delhi and Mumbai I guess for #1.

In Turkey Istanbul seems the definite #1 although Ankara is the capital.

Brazil has an odd situation with Brasilia as capital but low profile internationally, Sao Paulo being very dominant domestically but Rio de Janeiro being the most recognised city internationally.

In terms of where people visit then I think it depends on proximity. Most British visitors to France probably go to places outside Paris, though most visitors from the US or China might make that the focus of their trip. NYC might be the most popular destination in the US for many visitors from Europe, but definitely not for Mexicans. Madrid might be most popular for Latin American visitors to Spain but it isn't for Europeans.

For Canada Toronto is likely #1, but can be very possibly in any order of Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver depending what part of the country or world you ask.

Ontario... kinda odd. Toronto is #1 as its the provincial capital and Ottawa #2 as the national capital.

As Cirrus said, not every place has a true second city.

And no, to the common man, a suburban municipality is part of the primary city. Cambridge is a part of Boston to a tourist or person who is average at geography.

My first time in IL, I flew into ORD, drove into Schaumburg to get dinner then drove back into Chicago. Does that count?

As for Texas, Houston and DFW are both first and second.

What about other South American countries?

Cordoba for Argentina

Maracaibo as the center for oil production in Venezuela?

Medellin for Colombia?

Arequipa for Peru

What would it be in Chile?

When I think of Chile, I think of Santiago first, of course, but next I think of Concepcion even though Antofagasta is larger.

For Mexico, either Guadalajara or Monterrey (probably GDL).

Porto, Portugal is a clear second city. Same with Thessaloniki for Greece.

Chicago's second city is Detroit.

This phenomenon is pretty easy to spot in most of the Nordic countries

Denmark - Aarhus

Sweden - Gothenburg

Norway - Bergen is always the first that comes to mind for me, but Stavenger seems close enough that I'm not sure you could classify either as a true second city.

Finland - Tampere (but once again Turku might be too close)

Lithuania - Kaunas

Latvia and Estonia seem to more in line with "the capital city and then everything else"

yeah, if we expand things out to the four macro-regions instead of individual states for the US, then we get something like this:


northeast:
1st city - NYC
2nd city - dc? boston? philly?



midwest:
1st city - chicago
2nd city - detroit (possibly the twin cities?)



south:
1st city - atlanta? miami? dallas? houston?
2nd city - atlanta? miami? dallas? houston?



west:
1st city - LA
2nd city - SF



the west and midwest are fairly straightforward, but the 2nd city in the northeast gets a lot trickier.

and the south? forget about it. the south does not fall into a 1st city/2nd city paradigm.

ATL second city maybe Charlotte

Yeah, probably Charlotte.

I think NYC is at the nexus of two fairly distinct regions. Boston is the second city of the northeast, while DC is the second city of the mid-Atlantic.



I think Texas is a different region than Atlanta. Charlotte or Birmingham probably make sense as Atlanta's regional second city.

I would propose splitting the Pacific Northwest to its own region:
1st city - Seattle
2nd city - Vancouver

I think DC, at this point, is the clear Second City of the NE Corridor. I don't consider it much above Boston or Philly (in terms of urban attributes it's well behind), but it's a pretty obvious #2 overall.

That seems to happen when a dominant metro (e.g. Seattle in this case) captures cities near its fringe and converts them to secondary cities (e.g. Tacoma). In terms of economic independence, Spokane is undoubtedly Washington's second city.

Other examples where this has happened is that DC has captured Baltimore, Minneapolis St. Paul, and Oakland and San José are both fairly clearly in San Francisco's orbit, off the top of my head.

DC is an outlier considering the amount of soft power it wields even compared to New York. It's second to no one, nationally or even globally. New York wields economic power second to no one or shares it with London or until they collapse into an apocalypse after Brexit. They share number one. Boston is number 2.

Rock Cut State Park
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4223/...05724da6_b.jpgTroop 16 - Rock Cut 2017 by Harry Carmichael, on Flickr

Rockford is working diligently to re-focus after the general industrial slump, bout an hour or so away, well worth the road trip.

D.C. has its own area of supremacy for sure, which is the operation of the federal government, but most second cities have an area of domain expertise (SF - tech, Detroit - automotive, Houston - oil). But, can anyone easily name the mayor of D.C. without looking it up? How many people have trouble naming the mayor of New York?

The whole purpose of putting the capital of the federation in D.C., instead of keeping it in NYC or Philadelphia, was to keep the business center separate from the political center. It was literally intended to be a backwater. Two hundred and fifty years later, it still has mostly kept true to that intent.

De Blasio.:haha: