suurlinnades

Suurlinnades is the inessive plural form of the Estonian noun suurlinn, meaning “in metropolitan areas” or “in the capital cities.” Suurlinn refers to a large city, typically one with significant economic, cultural, or administrative importance. The plural nominative is suurlinnad, while the inessive plural suurlinnades denotes location inside multiple such cities. The term is widely used in urban studies, journalism, and demographic statistics.

Formation and grammar: Suurlinnades is formed by adding the plural inessive suffix -des to suurlinn. The inessive case answers questions about location or containment, roughly corresponding to “in” in English, but in plural form. For comparison, the singular inessive is suurlinnas, and the nominative plural is suurlinnad.

Usage examples: Suurlinnades elavad miljonid inimesed. (Millions of people live in metropolitan areas.) Euroopa suurlinnades on kõrge elukallidus ja tihe infrastruktuur. (In European metropolises there is a high cost of living and dense infrastructure.) The term is commonly employed in discussions of urban policy, migration, and regional planning to distinguish dynamics in large cities from those in smaller towns or rural areas.

See also: suurlinn, megacity.