COMP ARING EUROPEAN AND EAST ASIAN PORT CITIES: ARE GLOBAL DATABASES RELEV ANT SOURCES FOR RESEARCH?

COMP ARING EUROPEAN AND EAST ASIAN PORT CITIES: ARE GLOBAL DATABASES RELEV ANT SOURCES FOR RESEARCH?

Ports of the world are often compared in terms of throughput and productivity, whereas 'port cities' put in question the wider aspect of human settlings and economic activities which are more or less connected to port activity. Moreover, the dominant approach of monographs throughout specialized literature tends to curb the research of concepts and methods which are necessary to any scientific comparative approach. Our goal in this paper is to ask whereas existing statistical sources at a world scale about cities, ports and maritime activities do allow or not to answer theoretical questions through an empirical approach. Findings come from a comparison of 125 European and East Asian port cities thanks to a principal components analysis.