Résumé :
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This paper, part of ongoing work within the Sahel and West Africa Club Secretariat to integrate urbanisation and city growth into analyses of major trends in the region, lays the foundation for the development of a systematic method to capture and describe these spatial interactions. It does so by examining four variables: city size, market potential, urbanisation level and local dominance. These variables, in turn, help to define seven different city groups that can be used to classify West African agglomerations. The initial results of this work reveal the diversity and distinctive behaviours of cities in the region, providing a new perspective on urbanisation dynamics and the influence of spatial variables on urban growth rates, the emergence of new agglomerations and the clustering of cities.
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