A new mapping of the world for the new millennium

A new mapping of the world derived from connections between cities is presented as a complement to the traditional world map of countries. Under conditions of contemporary globalization world cities have emerged as global service centres. These have been created by the location strategies of leading corporate service firms (e.g. in accountancy) in setting up their global office networks. Data on the offices of 46 global service firms in 55 world cities are used to define service connections between cities. Connections are converted into measures of network proximity and a multidimensional scaling is applied to these ‘distances’ to create a ‘global service space’ of cities. This new mapping of the world shows a distinctive centric structure with the major world cities (e.g. London) at the core. Investigation of this general structure reveals more subtle patterns of interacting regional and hierarchical tendencies.