As a Cornishman, this is basically what's taught in the schools, yes. You live in a godforsaken suburb miles out of London but you pretend that, unlike us, you somehow live in a city. ;-)
Pretty much every major city worldwide has large suburbs that have their postcodes and are administered by the same municipal government, but they're clearly not included in the "European city center" designation. They are part of the city, but not part of the city center; and for a multimillion city the difference (and distances!) are significant.
