Forum:Number of Cities
From Alternative History
The Nexus: Index > Number of Cities
About how many cities in total are on the planet?--TEAKAY 01:16, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I suppose that completely depends on how you define city, the town were I live was granted city rights once and has a "City Hall", but in terms of population it is in no way entitled to call itself a city, judging all "cities" in the world is a task that would take years. --Karsten vK (talk) 07:38, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Both those points were what I was afraid of, though I'd call 20 000 people a city.--TEAKAY 19:59, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- 20,000 seems like a somewhat low number to me. And, in Wikipedia, at least (which also says that there is no one definition of a city), it says 100,000+[1]. So, yeah, I guess the definition is whatever you make of it. The matter is also complicated by the fact that there are so many suburbs that exceed 20,000 people. For example, I'm from Charlotte, NC. Touching Charlotte, and squeezed into the same county are Matthews and Mint Hill, both of which have around 20,000 people and are separate politically from Charlotte, yet the cities just melt into one another instead of being separated by nature or farms. Wikipedia also has a map of cities with over 1 million people. There are just so many dots, it's hard to count. Also, there are some problems and inconsistencies. For example, Charlotte is not included but Portland, OR and Norfolk, VA are. All three of these cities have populations less than 1 million yet metropolitan areas greater than 1 million. In fact, Charlotte beats Norfolk out population-wise in all respects, and beats Portland out in city-proper population size and is only slightly exceeded by Portland in metro population. But, to get a rough estimate, I'd count the dots up as best I could and then multiply that number by how many cities of 20,000 to 999,999 you think there are for every one city of 1 million. (Probably at least 20 and maybe 50.) Counting only the cities-proper, North Carolina has 35 settlements of over 20,000 and zero cities of over 1 million, keeping in mind that probably many of these 35 settlements are neighbors in the same metropolitan area. Assuming the world (pop. 6.5 billion) had the same exact characteristics as North Carolina (pop. 8 million), then there would be around 28,438 cities (of over 20,000 people) in the world. I hope this was somewhat more informative than boring. --Riction 00:01, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- Hardly boring, it's interesting. Just too bad the term is so ambiguous.--TEAKAY 23:38, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
- 20,000 seems like a somewhat low number to me. And, in Wikipedia, at least (which also says that there is no one definition of a city), it says 100,000+[1]. So, yeah, I guess the definition is whatever you make of it. The matter is also complicated by the fact that there are so many suburbs that exceed 20,000 people. For example, I'm from Charlotte, NC. Touching Charlotte, and squeezed into the same county are Matthews and Mint Hill, both of which have around 20,000 people and are separate politically from Charlotte, yet the cities just melt into one another instead of being separated by nature or farms. Wikipedia also has a map of cities with over 1 million people. There are just so many dots, it's hard to count. Also, there are some problems and inconsistencies. For example, Charlotte is not included but Portland, OR and Norfolk, VA are. All three of these cities have populations less than 1 million yet metropolitan areas greater than 1 million. In fact, Charlotte beats Norfolk out population-wise in all respects, and beats Portland out in city-proper population size and is only slightly exceeded by Portland in metro population. But, to get a rough estimate, I'd count the dots up as best I could and then multiply that number by how many cities of 20,000 to 999,999 you think there are for every one city of 1 million. (Probably at least 20 and maybe 50.) Counting only the cities-proper, North Carolina has 35 settlements of over 20,000 and zero cities of over 1 million, keeping in mind that probably many of these 35 settlements are neighbors in the same metropolitan area. Assuming the world (pop. 6.5 billion) had the same exact characteristics as North Carolina (pop. 8 million), then there would be around 28,438 cities (of over 20,000 people) in the world. I hope this was somewhat more informative than boring. --Riction 00:01, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- Both those points were what I was afraid of, though I'd call 20 000 people a city.--TEAKAY 19:59, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I suppose that completely depends on how you define city, the town were I live was granted city rights once and has a "City Hall", but in terms of population it is in no way entitled to call itself a city, judging all "cities" in the world is a task that would take years. --Karsten vK (talk) 07:38, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
I originally thought for my timeline that there would be slightly fewer cities because civilisations developed faster than OTL, but, then because much of the world's population was directed by Rome, and almost no Roman cities in this TL have suburbs, it then seems like there should be more cities for all those people not living in the millions just outside city limits. What would the real situation be?--TEAKAY 00:28, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- In terms of ancient history and archaeology, a settlement can be considered a "city" even if it has almost no permanent residents, just a collection of ceremonial buildings and a market for surrounding farmers to gather. Benkarnell 16:54, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- Interesting.--TEAKAY 14:43, 11 June 2008 (UTC)