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The theoretical issues of an earlier paper by the authors concerning daily urban systems are now followed by the problems of applying this concept to British data. The complexities of the British urban system pose difficulties for any approach which prohibits overlapping areas, multinodal regions, and recognition of the differing travel patterns of social groups. No single, simple algorithm can cope consistently both with the major metropolitan regions and with the peripheral areas. To overcome these problems, the additional concepts of ‘self-containment’ and ‘metropolitan dominance’ are introduced into the consideration of journey-to-work patterns. These developments result in a regionalisation which takes the form of an urban hierarchy by creating a two-tier structure in the densely populated parts of the country, and free-standing daily urban systems elsewhere.