section_path: Demographics/Metropolitan area
section_name: Metropolitan area
paragraph_text: Metropolitan area
  
  The nonspecific term "Grande São Paulo" (" Greater São Paulo ") covers multiple definitions. The legally defined Região Metropolitana de São Paulo consists of 39 municipalities in total and a population of 21.1 million inhabitants (as of the 2014 National Census).
  
  The Metropolitan Region of São Paulo is known as the financial, economic, and cultural center of Brazil. Among the largest municipalities, Guarulhos, with a population of more than 1 million people is the biggest one. Several others count more than 100,000 inhabitants, such as São Bernardo do Campo (811,000 inh.) and Santo André (707,000 inh.) in the ABC Region. The ABC Region, comprising Santo André, São Bernardo do Campo and São Caetano do Sul in the south of Grande São Paulo, is an important location for industrial corporations, such as Volkswagen and Ford Motors.
  
  Because São Paulo has urban sprawl, it uses a different definition for its metropolitan area alternately called the Expanded Metropolitan Complex of São Paulo and the São Paulo Macrometropolis. Analogous to the BosWash definition, it is one of the largest urban agglomerations in the world, with 32 million inhabitants, behind Tokyo, which includes four contiguous legally defined metropolitan regions and three micro-regions.