Headquarters of Large Enterprises in the Spatial Structure of Major Polish Cities

The paper is based on the author’s monograph (Śleszyński, 2008). It presents the analysis of enterprise headquarters’ locations in eight largest Polish cities (Warsaw, Szczecin, The Tricity [Gdańsk–Gdynia–Sopot], Poznań, Łódź, Wrocław, Katowice and Krakow). The study primarily involved data from the Hoppenstedt Bonnier database for the year 2004, concerning 3810 entities whose overall revenue exceeded the minimum of 15.6 million PLN. The businesses were analysed in terms of their location with respect to the city centre, as well as the differentiation of revenues, line of business and ownership structure. The analyses helped in the formulation of the basic regularities of the location distribution. For instance, it was found that spatial concentration is most significant in the case of the largest enterprises, the public sector and more advanced businesses, particularly high-order services.The location of large company headquarters, as well as their mutual connections, performs one of the key roles (or even the most important one) in the development of Central Business Districts in Polish cities during transformation.