Topological characterization of world cities

The topological organization of several world cities are studied according to respective representations by complex networks. As a first step, the city maps are processed by a recently developed methodology that allows the most significant urban region of each city to be identified. Then, we estimate many topological measures on the obtained networks, and apply multivariate statistics and data analysis methods to study and compare the topologies. Remarkably, the obtained results show that cities from specific continents—especially Africa, Anglo-Saxon America, and Oceania—tend to have particular topological properties. Such developments should contribute to a better understanding how cities are organized and related to different geographical locations worldwide.