I've racked my brain trying to remember where I read it but something I came across this week made reference to London being the World's Largest City once upon a time. You know how much I love anything having to do with the World's Largest Stuff so I wanted to find out more.
Sure enough, someone has written a book on the subject. It's called Four Thousand Years Of Urban Growth: An Historical Census by Tertius Chandler. I may have to track down a copy for further reading but one chart I found online from the book listed the world's most populous cities throughout history and the approximate year they became #1.
London, for instance, was on top for about a hundred years starting in 1825 when they had 1.35 million folks. Some other highlights:
The earliest champ in the book was Memphis, Egypt with about 30,000 people in 3100 B.C..
Babylonia in Iraq was #1 in 612 B.C. and was the first city to have more than 200,000 residents.
Rome, Italy hit 450,000 in 25 A.D..
Beijing, China hit 600,000 in about 1450. Why Rome was not bigger by that point I can't imagine.
New York in 1925 had 7.774 million.
Since 1965 Tokyo has held the crown. That year they hit 15 million people. According to the 2006 census they had 35.53 million call it home. More than 35 million people living in one city (and its surrounding urban areas.) Wow.
Think for a moment about how many cities you could guess are in the top 20 most populous cities on Earth today before you look at the list below. I was surprised by some of the places that made the cut.
#20 Manila, Philippines 10.80 million
#19 Moscow, Russia 10.82
#18 Beijing, China 10.85
#17 Cairo, Egypt 11.29
#16 Osaka, Kobe, Japan 11.32
#15 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 11.62
#14 Lagos, Nigeria 11.70
#13 Karachi, Pakistan 12.20
#12 Los Angeles, USA 12.22
#11 Shanghai, China 12.63
#10 Dhaka, Bangladesh 13.09
#9 Buenos Aires, Argentina 13.52
#8 Jakarta, Indonesia 13.67
#7 Calcutta, India 14.57
#6 Delhi, India 16.00
#5 Sao Paulo, Brazil 18.61
#4 New York, USA 18.65
#3 Mumbai, India 18.84
#2 Mexico City, Mexico 19.24
#1 Tokyo, Japan 35.53
I've had the privilege of traveling some in my life but have still only been to three of the cities on the Top 20 list. I am curious if any of my readers have been to five. Anyone visited more? Love to hear from you and as I thank you in advance for leaving a comment I'll mention that someone today will leave the 4000th comment on my blog since it went live on November 1st, 2007. Thank you again for helping me make this a two way exchange of ideas and information.
*"Stand back, I don't know how big this thing gets" is the punchline to an old joke about Adam's first words to Eve in the Garden of Eden, population, 2. :)
Wow, I had no idea Tokyo had that many people. I went there recently and I was shocked at how big it was. It was like downtown L.A. except about a hundred times bigger. The skyscrapers just seemed to go on and on. And of course, it's really crowded, but 35 million? Jeez.
Posted by: Jennifer George | July 12, 2008 at 08:15 AM
I've only been to two cities on the list and I live in one of them. Guess I better start traveling.
Posted by: Mike | July 12, 2008 at 09:06 AM
Sorry Bean! I've only been to the bad place...
Posted by: Kate | July 12, 2008 at 09:19 AM
I've only been to 4. I guess when I travel I avoid crowds.
Posted by: Emily Alexis | July 12, 2008 at 10:24 AM
I have been to five: Los Angeles, New York, Mexico City, Beijing and Tokyo. I don't think I'll make it to many more, though. The older I get, the more I try to avoid crowded places when on vacation!
I'm sure you can appreciate that. :-)
Posted by: Resilient Rabbit | July 12, 2008 at 10:35 AM
I've only been to four of those cities. If London was still on there, I could say five.
Posted by: Lori | July 12, 2008 at 10:39 AM
I've only been to two. I live in L.A. and have been to New York.
Bean, what is your third city(besides LA & NY)?
Posted by: IHeartBean | July 12, 2008 at 11:18 AM
Is there a difference between largest and populous? I think so.
Posted by: Tracy | July 12, 2008 at 12:45 PM
#1 beats #2 by nearly twice as much. But if you look at 3, 4, and 5 they are hardly behind, by less than a million.
#20 is about half of #2, the same difference as #1 from #2.
Jesus Tokyo! :-O
Don't those people know the joys of abortion like us American girls do?
Posted by: Frances | July 12, 2008 at 01:20 PM
11.7 million in Lagos, Nigeria, and every single one of them has gotten my e-mail address from monster.com...
I've only been to one of the cities - L.A.
I also like to avoid crowded places when I travel, and since most of my traveling involves visiting relatives, it doesn't look like I'm going to make it to any of the other 19 anytime soon.
Posted by: Stacey | July 12, 2008 at 02:05 PM
I've been to six. My family is from Rio de Janeiro... I lived in L.A. for almost two years, the other part of my family is from NYC. During college I moved to Buenos Aires as an exchange student. I have visited Mexico City during my vacation, and I am currently living in Sao Paulo.
But... I don´t like crowded places.
I´ve just go to work. And this is where work is located.
Posted by: Bruno Freitas | July 12, 2008 at 05:49 PM
I have no desire to go to any of them now!!
I live in the county of The Bad Place, but I never go into the (shiver) actual city. Yuck.
That's why Oregon is the place for me, only a little over 3 million in the entire state! Yes, please.
Posted by: Nicole | July 13, 2008 at 09:06 AM
I have only been to one but I live there so that does not count. I have spent a lot of time here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seoul though and it is impressive. If you think that 23 million live in the metro are of Seoul. People always around gets old after awhile.
Posted by: Dave w | July 13, 2008 at 11:44 AM
"Is there a difference between largest and populous? I think so."
Largest equates to area. Think California City, California.
Population: 8,385
Area: 203.6 sq. mi. Third largest in California.
Posted by: Dean Lamborn | July 13, 2008 at 12:21 PM
it would be interesting to know how many people per square mile. tokyo would probably still win, but LA would go right of the list, i think.
Posted by: maltese parakeet | July 14, 2008 at 08:58 AM
I've been to three - LA, NYC and Manila. Manila was crowded but I didn't think it was that crowded.
Posted by: Chris Kiefer | July 14, 2008 at 09:24 AM
I have been to 4: Osaka, Tokyo, Los Angeles, and New York. I think Mexico and LA will have fluctuating populations depending on who is president
Posted by: Drew | July 14, 2008 at 04:27 PM
I've been to five! LA, NYC, Tokyo, Beijing and Shanghai. (Who knew I was so well-travelled?)
Posted by: Virginia Duan | July 14, 2008 at 04:52 PM
Los Angeles doesn't have 12 million people. Is this the Metro area? I don't even think the official metro area is 12 million. Maybe if you added up everyone from Santa Barbara to Irvine, including Riverside, Bakersfield, and San Berdu. The city itself is just over 3 million. At least that's what the signs and the census say. Maybe they are adding the entire population of Mexico to the city. That would make this number more likely. Otherwise, the figure is way off.
Posted by: Fleiter | July 15, 2008 at 01:46 PM
F'ing India has 3 in the top 7. 48 Million people in those 3 all together. "Oh we're so poor. Oh Sally Struthers eats our children." I have compassion (which means I am about to say something uncompassionate), but if you struggle with being poor and income how about less kids? "Stop imposing your western values on other cultures" Yet I am supposed to support them.
Done
Posted by: Edmund F | July 15, 2008 at 02:09 PM