Cities are sites of multiple meanings and symbols, ranging from statues and street names to festivals and architecture. Sometimes the symbolic side of urbanism is so strong that it outshines reality -- then we speak of hypercity. Urban symbolic ecology and hypercity studies are relatively new fields that deal with the production, distribution and consumption of symbols and meanings in urban space, timely concerns in an era of increasing globalization and competition between mega-urban regions. This volume, which presents a detailed introduction to the new fields, followed by case studies of the cultural layer of symbolism in Brussels (Belgium), Cape Town (South Africa), Cuenca (Ecuador), Delft (The Netherlands), Kingston (Jamaica), Ljubljana (Slovenia), Paris (France) and cities in Italy and Indonesia, amply demonstrates that the time has come for urban symbolic ecology and hypercity studies to be included in regular urban studies training in the fields of anthropology, sociology and architecture.