Urban economies in Germany. Cluster potential and global interconnections. Urban economies are the leading locational centres of corporate headquarters, advanced producer services, the media sector, research and development, particular “knowledge-intensive” activity branches of the economy and innovative industrial growth sectors. The urban regions might be characterized as heterogenous agglomerations of economic activities, which include a number of sub-economies with different functions and forms of organisation.The urban regions’ economic potential reveils specific differences with regard to the large urban economic centres in West- and East-Germany. The different positions of particular urban economic centres in Germany and Europe as ancoring points of global firms’ organizational networks are being indicated with regard to global service providers and global media firms, emphasizing the global interconnections as an important development factor particularly in the metropoles of the urban system.