Largest Cities Through History

21/06/07

http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa011201a.htm

by Matt T. Rosenberg

Tertius Chandler's compilation of the population of cities throughout history, Four

Thousand Years of Urban Growth: An Historical Census is an amazing work
providing the population of cities throughout time. Chandler utilized a plethora of
historical sources to locate approximate populations for the world's largest cities
since 3100 BCE.

As there were few censuses prior to the end of the eighteenth century, Chandler
used a variety of methods to determine the size of the world's largest cities: he
used traveler's estimates, data on the number of households within cities, the
number of wagons of food that arrived at the cities, the size of the military
(commonly 1/6 of the size of a city during peace and 1/5 of the size of the city
during times of crises), the area of the city walls along with typical densities, church
records, the amount of food distributed to citizens, city comparisons (i.e. London is
larger than Paris but smaller than Moscow), and even the loss of life in a disaster!

Therefore, in many cases, Chandler's numbers can only be considered rough

approximations of the urban population. His figures include the city and
surrounding suburban or urbanized area.

What follows is a list of the largest city at each point in history since 3100 BCE
(before common era = before Christ or B.C.). It lacks population data for many
cities but does provide a list of the largest cities throughout time. By looking at the
first and second lines of the table, we see that Memphis remained the largest city in
the world from at least 3100 BCE to 2240 BCE when Akkad claimed the title.

This feature also includes lists of the ten largest cites in the world at interesting
points throughout history - the years 100, 1000, 1500, 1800, 1900, and 1950.

If you're interested in the history of urban growth, Chandler's text is an essential

one. I highly recommend taking a look at a local library, it's filled with hundreds of
lists - by year, by country, by continent, and much more.

Year
City Became Population Information
#1
Memphis, Egypt 3100 BCE Well over 30,000
Akkad, Babylonia (Iraq) 2240

Lagash, Babylonia (Iraq) 2075

Ur, Babylonia (Iraq) 2030 65,000
Thebes, Egypt 1980

Babylon, Babylonia (Iraq) 1770

Avaris, Egypt 1670

Memphis, Egypt 1557

Thebes, Egypt 1400

Nineveh, Assyria (Iraq) 668

Babylon, Babylonia (Iraq) 612 First above 200,000
Alexandria 320

Pataliputra (Patna), India 300

Changan (Xi'an), China 195 400,000
Rome 25 450,000 (100 CE)
Constantinople (Istanbul),
340 CE 400,000 (500)
Turkey
Ctesiphon, Iraq 570
Changan (Xi'an), China 637 400,000 (622); 600,000 (800)
Baghdad, Iraq 775 First over 1 million; 700,000 (800)
Cordova, Spain 935
Kaifeng, China 1013 400,000 (1000); 442,000 (1100)
Constantinople (Istanbul),
1127
Turkey
Merv (Mary), Turkmenistan 1145 200,000 (1150)
Constantinople (Istanbul),
1153
Turkey
Fez (Fes), Morocco 1170
Hangzhou, China 1180 255,000 (1200); 320,000 (1250)
Cairo, Egypt 1315
Hangzhou, China 1348 432,000 (1350)
Nanking, China 1358 487,000 (1400)
Beijing, China 1425 600,000 (1450); 672,000 (1500)
Constantinople (Istanbul),
1650 700,000 (1650 & 1700)
Turkey
Beijing, China 1710 900,000 (1750); 1.1 million (1800)
First over 5 million; 1.35 million (1825); 2.32 million (1850); 4.241
London, United Kingdom 1825
million (1875); 6.480 million (1900)
New York 1925 First over 10 million; 7.774 million (1925), 12.463 million (1950)
Tokyo 1965 First over 20 million; 23 million (1975)

See the lists of the top ten cities throughout history:

Top 10 Cities of the Year 100 | Top 10 Cities of the Year 1000 | Top 10 Cities of the
Year 1500 | Top 10 Cities of the Year 1800 | Top 10 Cities of the Year 1900 | Top 10
Cities of the Year 1950