According to Wikipedia:
A global city (also called world city or sometimes alpha city or world center) is a Specialized City deemed to be an important node point in the global economic system. The concept comes from geography and urban studies and rests on the idea that globalization can be understood as largely created, facilitated and enacted in strategic geographic locales according to a hierarchy of importance to the operation of the global system of finance and trade.
A 2008 report by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network ranked cities in the world as Alpha, Beta, Gama, Highly Sufficient and Sufficient.
Here are the global cities which I have visited in my travels:
Alpha Cities
- London
- New York
- Hong Kong
- Paris
- Singapore
- Tokyo
- Sydney
- Madrid
- Seoul
- Toronto
- Brussels
- Buenos Aires
- Kuala Lumpur
- Chicago
- Zurich
- Amsterdam
- Jakarta
- Bangkok
- Taipei
- Istanbul
- Rome
- Frankfurt
- Prague
- Vienna
- Budapest
- Athens
- Los Angeles
- Auckland
Beta Cities
- Washington
- Melbourne
- Johannesburg
- Atlanta
- Barcelona
- San Francisco
- Manila
- Tel Aviv
- Dubai
- Bucharest
- Cairo
- Luxembourg
- Dallas
- Kuwait
- Boston
- Sofia
- Saigon
- Berlin
Gamma Cities
- Quito
- Montreal
- Bratislava
- Brisbane
- Vancouver
- Cape Town
- Minneapolis
- Seattle
- Ljubljana
- Perth
- Philadelphia
- Portland
- Detroit
- Wellington
- San Diego
- Doha
- Calgary
- Columbus
High Sufficiency
- Adelaide
- Phoenix
- Cleveland
- San Juan
- Hanoi
- Kansas City
- Pittsburgh
- Orlando
- Osaka
- Indianapolis
- Canberra
- Georgetown (Caymans)
- Baltimore
- Nassau
- St. Louis
- Ottawa