this is also the case of several midsized fuas taraz uralsk atyrau aktau and aktobe in contrast in the other two metropolitan areas of kazakhstan astana and shymkent the city cores grew more rapidly than the commuting zone between and in oecd countries suburbanisation has been particularly strong in large metropolitan areas of more than million people figure shows the contributions of commuting zones and city cores to overall fua growth during the period beyond astana the fastestgrowing cities are in the southern and western areas of the country