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This paper delivers a comparative analysis of the urban growth process and the urban hierarchies of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region with metropolitan France. By using historical data for the period 1962–2013, the paper shows that the PACA region’s urban system behaves differently to the rest of France. While a strong urban concentration process is taking place in the rest of France, the PACA region is observing a decline in the demographic weight of the largest urban areas, to the benefit of the smaller and medium-size cities. Regional disparities can also be observed in the processes of convergence toward an optimal urban size. This work uses a set of statistical and econometric tools such as stationarity tests in panel data and Markov processes to study and compare the urban growth processes.