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This article reviews uses of the term ‘metropolis’ to denote cities of a distinctive character, principally from the first to the late twentieth century A.D. ‘Metropolis’ is a ‘significant word’ with special resonance and power. Urban historians will profit from giving its uses careful attention. Those uses reveal, in particular contexts, ideas and ambitions concerning the status, authority and identity of both cities and peoples. They are often vague, rhetorical or boosterish, but just as often their precision adds to our understanding of contemporary thought. Often the term relates to a concern with the past or the future, or to senses of transience or regret. Equally significant are those cases where important cities were not described as metropolises, although occasionally modern historians have come to believe mistakenly that they were. Phases in the use of the term can be identified, especially in the nineteenth and early twentieth century when London became an influential model. In recent decades social scientists and bureaucrats have abused the term, but in some contexts ‘metropolis’ still has cultural and political power.

This article explores ideas associated with the term ‘metropolis’, especially when used concerning London, and then takes the notion of the city-state as a heuristic device to identify recurrent and fundamental characteristics of this particular metropolis. The comparisons are between successive phases in London's history, including the present; between London and other metropolises; and between London and that elusive ideal type, the ‘city-state’.