Abstract:In China, the megacities have entered the stage of metropolitan development, and the spatial organization mechanisms and governance models have been greatly changed. However, there is currently no official statistical system, standardized and norms for the metropolitan areas in China. To study the methods and criteria of regional division of metropolitan areas, taking the Tokyo metropolitan area, the Paris metropolitan area and the Seoul metropolitan area as examples, the inductive-deductive approach is used to deeply compare two levels of administrative region and functional region. The results indicate that the spatial extent of metropolitan area is closely linked to transportation levels. Its extent has the dynamic adjustment characteristics. The metropolitan area of Chengdu is defined according to the index of 5% commuting rate. Its spatial scale is approximately 3 500 km2. The recently delimited scope is close to the urban planning area delimited by the traditional master plan and the urban centralized construction area delimited by the current territorial spatial plan. Based on administrative units, the delimited metropolitan areas have the strong operability, which is conducive to horizontal data comparison and academic research, and the division based on administrative units should be actively adopted in practice.