Re-defining the Boundaries of Major Italian Cities

The processes of spatial polarisation and territorial integration that have taken place in Italy since the 1950s have not been accompanied by corresponding institutional adaptations, generating the current huge discrepancy between the functional and political-administrative organisation of the territory. As argued in the paper, this institutional lock-in is rooted in a mistaken conceptualisation of territorial integration, which has focused solely on the identification of the emerging „functional urban areas', neglecting the fundamental phenomenon of the formation of inter-municipal territorial systems which have acquired the nature of cities de facto. On the basis of both functional and morphological features, the paper identifies the cities de facto with regard to the eight largest Italian cities de jure.