Second City in the Economic Space of the Region

The relevance of the problem is determined by a certain bias in research preferences towards regional capitals, which are the second cities of Russia relative to Moscow and St. Petersburg, with a lack of research devoted to assessing the characteristics of second cities at the subnational level – in certain subjects of the Russian Federation. The research purpose is to assess the role and identify specific features of the second city in the economic space of the Samara region. Research objectives include: identification and description of the research object using a retrospective method; selection of indicators and sources of information to assess the role of the second city in the economic space of the Samara region; performing calculations for the period 2017–2021 and interpreting the results using functional-industry and spatial approaches based on the official statistical sources. It is revealed that the second city of the Samara region in terms of its size (population), economic functions and role in the economic space of the region is the city of Togliatti.