World cities in Asia: Cliques, centrality and connectedness

The world's leading cities are linked to one another by the ? ow of commodities, information and people to form part of the fabric of the world system. They are linked hierarchically, with some cities occupying more prominent positions than others in this global network of urban places. While this network is relatively stable, it is not immutable. The late 20th century saw deindustrialisation in the core countries, the shift of industries towards less developed countries, economic boom (and bust) in several developing countries and rapidly increasing global interdependence. Accompanying these changes has been the dramatic rise of several Asian cities in the hierarchical global system of urban places. This research describes the changing place of Asian cities in the world system of cities by using formal network analytical techniques with data on airline travel between all pairs of about 100 world cities from 1975 to 1997.