Spatial patterns of territorial competitiveness: The role of peripherality, urbanization and physical geography

•Intra-regional measures of territorial competitiveness capture heterogeneity across different territories and industries.•Accessibility, peripherality and geographical disadvantage, play different roles in different sectors of economic activity.•The paper highlights a large centripetal attraction effect coming from the presence of metropolitan areas.•This second-nature geography effect dominates over first-nature physical geography (peripherality, mountains).