This article is the first-ever analysis of cities in relation to maritime transport flows from a relational, or network, perspective. Based on untapped vessel movement data covering the last 120 years, this articles sheds new light about the interdependencies at stake between urban hierarchies and port hierarchies overtime. Main results point to the fading correlation between traffic volume, port centrality, and city size, while the largest cities have maintained their prominence in the global maritime network despite contemporary spatial and functional changes affecting the distribution of transport systems and commodity chains. Such findings help better understanding not only the spatial and functional evolution of port-city relationships and maritime transport; they also confirm the importance of taking into account the long-term dynamics and socioeconomic embedding of spatial networks in geography and other disciplines.

This paper revisits the classical issue of port-city relationships by applying for the first time network analytical methods to maritime flows connecting cities of the world, over the period . A global matrix of interurban vessel flows was elaborated for about 600 cities using data from the Geopolis and Lloyd' s Shipping Index databases and the rigorous assignment of ports to both coastal and inland urban areas. Main results show that although the largest cities have witnessed a diminishing importance in world traffic, they have maintained their dominance in the network in terms of centrality and geographic reach. This research thus contributes to question the ineluctable separation between ports and cities which dominated the literature, while offering new empirical evidence about the structure and dynamics of city-systems and spatial networks in general.

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BAGF-GÉOGRAPHIES-2015-1 (scientific/intellectual movement) (Frickel, Gross, 2005), combined with spatial analysis. Temporal evolution and spatial configuration of this scientific movement remained largely unknown until now. This paper mainly engages archives (Répertoire des géographes, journals or lists of communications of TGQ colloquium) analyzed with quantitative methods (from graph theory to the analysis of geographical units' specialization). This investigation has shown that the emergence of this scientific movement took place from 1971-1972 to 1984, involving a small number of actors and locations, and while individual researchers interact in order to give themselves a self training.