ABSTRACT
Frankfurt is beyond doubt the dominant city in a highly urbanised polycentric region currently called the Rhine-Main region, which includes Wiesbaden, Mainz, Darmstadt, Offenbach and many smaller towns with fewer than 100,000 inhabitants. The densely populated area is mainly constituted by the southern part of the federal state of Hessen, but includes parts of Rhineland-Palatinate (Mainz, Bingen) and a corner of Bavaria (Aschaffenburg). It extends approximately 100 km from east to west (Aschaffenburg-Bingen) and 80 km from north (Bad Nauheim) to south (Heppenheim), where there is a transition to the Rhine-Neckar region (Heidelberg, Mannheim, Ludwigshafen).
