Historical urban community sizes

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Estimated populations of historical cities over time.

Contents

[edit] Neolithic settlements

Further information: Neolithic architecture
City 7000 BC
'Ain Ghazal 2,500[1]
Catalhuyuk 7,000[citation needed]
2,500[1]
Jericho 2,000[citation needed]

[edit] Bronze Age

Further information: Cities of the Ancient Near East
City 3100 BC 2600 BC 2000 BC 1600 BC 1200 BC
Avaris/Pi-Ramses 100,000 [4] 160,000 [4]
Babylon 40,000 (Kish) [4] 60,000 [5] 50,000
Harappa 35,000 [6]
City of Knossos 100,000
Lagash 40,000 [4] 30,000 [4]
Memphis 30,000 [7] 60,000 [4] 22,000 [5] 50,000 [5]
Mohenjo-daro 41,250 [6] 20,000 [5]
Niniveh 23,000 33,000
Shahr-i Sokhta 20,000 [1]
Ur 65,000 [5]
Uruk 40,000 [4] 80,000 [4]
Yinxu (Anyang) 120,000 [4]

City of Knossos

[edit] Iron Age

City 1000 BC 900 BC 650 BC 430 BC 200 BC AD 2 AD 100
Alexandria 300,000 [5]

600,000 [4]
Antioch [5] 120,000
Anuradhapura [5] 48,000 68,000 130,000
Athens [5] 155,000 250,000 [5]
Babylon [5] 100,000[8] 60,000 200,000
Carthage [5] 150,000 100,000
Haoqing / Chang'an / Xi'an 100,000 [8] 125,000 [4] 33,000 [5] 400,000 [5] 246,000 [1] 81,000 [5]
Linzi 100,000 [4] 200,000 [4]
Luoyang 100,000 [9][10] 100,000 [4] 200,000 [4] 420,000
Memphis [5] 100,000[8] 65,000 100,000
Niniveh 120,000
Pataliputra [5] 100,000 350,000 69,000
Peshawar [5] 120,000
Rome 160,000 [5] 800,000 [4] 450,000 [5]

1,000,000 [4]
Seleucia [5] 200,000 250,000 150,000
Teotihuacán 60,000-

80,000 [11]
Thebes 120,000[8]
Xiadu 320,000 [4]
Xianyang 300,000[5]

[edit] Middle Ages

City 500 775 900 1000 1250 1400 1500
Baghdad 700,000 [7] 900,000 [5][4] 125,000 [5]

1,200,000 [4]

 150,000 [5]

1,000,000 [4]
Beijing 672,000 [7]

1,000,000 [4]
Cairo [5] 135,000 400,000
Chang'an / Xi'an [5] 400,000[5] 1,000,000[4][5][12] 800,000[4][5]
Constantinople / Istanbul [5] 400,000 225,000 300,000 300,000 100,000 200,000
Córdoba [5] 200,000 450,000
Edo(Tokyo)
Florence 110,000 [13] 45,000 [14] 60,000 [15]
Genoa 80,000 [16] 100,000 [17] 80,000 [18] 150,000 [19]
Hangzhou 1,000,000[4] 1,500,000[4] 250,000[5]
Jiankang 500,000 [4]
Kaifeng 432,000[5] 1,000,000 [4]
Kyoto [5] 200,000 200,000 300,000
London 5,000-10,000 50,000-100,000 [2]
Milan 150,000 [20] 125,000 [21] 80,000 [22]
Osaka
Paris [5] 80,000 [23] 275,000 [24] 185,000
Rome 100,000 [5] 50,000 50,000
Tenochtitlan [25] 212,500
Teotihuacán 125,000 [26]
Venice 45,000 [27] 120,000 [28] 110,000 [29]
Vijayanagar [5] 500,000

[edit] Early Modern era

City 1600 1700 1800
Amsterdam 60,000 205,000 205,000
Ayutthaya 300,000 1,000,000 [4]
Beijing 706,000 [5]

1,000,000 [4]

 650,000 [5] 1,100,000 [5] [4]
Berlin 12,000 70,000 172,122
Edo(Tokyo) 1,000,000 (1721 year)[30] 1,100,000[5]
Guangzhou 1,000,000 [4]
Istanbul 650,000 700,000 570,000
Kyoto 400,000+[31] 377,000 [5]
London 150,000 550,000 960,000
Madrid 90,000 125,000 180,000
Milan [32] 150,000 125,000 160,000
Moscow 100,000 150,000 200,000
Naples 207,000 [33] 430,000
Osaka 350,000+[31] 383,000 [5]
Paris 325,000 600,000 548,000
Rome 100,000 150,000 [34] 163,000
Venice [35] 180,000 145,000 160,000
Vienna 80,000 100,000 225,000

[edit] 20th century

City 1900 1950 2000
Bangkok 300,000 1,200,000 9,320,000
Berlin 1,888,848 3,336,026 4,101,000
Buenos Aires 950,891 4,618,255 11,460,575
Chicago 1,698,575 4,900,000 8,300,000
Istanbul 942,900 983,041 10,018,735
London 6,506,954 8,196,978 8,250,000
Los Angeles 102,479 3,500,000 11,500,000
Madrid 575,675 1,553,338 5,285,242
Mexico City 400,000 2,883,000 16,400,000
Moscow 1,175,000 4,847,000 10,126,424
New York City 4,200,000 12,300,000 17,800,000
Osaka 6,177,000 (1920) 9,000,000 18,643,915
Paris 3,750,000 6,150,000 9,700,000
Saint Petersburg 1,439,400 2,691,000 4,200,000
São Paulo 239,820 2,700,000 (1954) 15,500,000
Shanghai 1,000,000 5,406,000 [5] 16,738,000
Tokyo 1,497,000 13,051,000 34,671,612
Vienna 1,769,137 1,616,125 1,550,000

[edit] 21st century

See List of cities by population for current data.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Yuri E. Berezkin: http://www.arkeologi.uu.se/afr/projects/BOOK/berez.pdf
  2. ^ Dobrovody and Maydanets Suggested to be housing up to 10,000 people in Modelski'w text (pp. 24–25), The estimate is based on the author's personal communication with Mikhail Videiko, Institute of Archaeology, Kiev, October 2002 (p. 75). The previous estimates by S. I. Kruts for Maydanets and Talianki are 8,000 (1,575 housed within 270 ha) and 14,000 (2,700 houses within 450 ha), respectively (Pitskhelauri, K. N., and Chernykh, E. N. Eds., Kavkaz v sisteme paleometallicheskikh kultur Evrazii, Metsniereba, Tbilisi, 1989, pp. 146–156.).
  3. ^ http://www.trypillia.com/articles/eng/se1.shtml http://webpages.charter.net/anthropogene/arc_vol1_is9.html[unreliable source?]
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af George Modelski, World Cities: –3000 to 2000, Washington DC: FAROS 2000, 2003. ISBN 2-00309-499-4. See also Evolutionary World Politics Homepage.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as Tertius Chandler. Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth: An Historical Census (1987), St. David's University Press (etext.org). ISBN 0-88946-207-0.
  6. ^ a b Encyclopædia Britannica. The Indus Civilization - Population.
  7. ^ a b c Matt T. Rosenberg, Largest Cities Through History.
  8. ^ a b c d Modelski’s list of the world’s largest cities treats Thebes and Haoqing as the top cities with 100,000 inhabitants (p. 218), though the same list on the next page (p. 219) as well as Table 2 (c) place the population of Thebes at 120,000, while that for Haoqing as well as Memphis and Babylon at 100,000 (pp. 33-34).
  9. ^ Chandler listed Thebes, Haoqing, and Chengzhou (Luoyang) as the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd largest cities (p. 460), though Luoyang is supposed to pass 100,000 in 1000 B.C. (p. 541).
  10. ^ When the city first passed 100,000, suggested by Richard Forstall (pp. 541-542).
  11. ^ Teotihuacan Introduction
  12. ^ Haoqing, the capital of Western Zhou, was located 15 km SW of Chang'an, the capital of Sung and Tang dynasties as well as the present center of Xi'an. Han capital was located 5 km NW of the center of modern Xi'an. All these sites are now within the sub-provincial city of Xi'an.
  13. ^ M. Ginatempo L. Sandri “L’Italia delle Città. Sec XIII XVI” Le Lettere 1990
  14. ^ M. Ginatempo L. Sandri “L’Italia delle Città. Sec XIII XVI” Le Lettere 1990
  15. ^ M. Ginatempo L. Sandri “L’Italia delle Città. Sec XIII XVI” Le Lettere 1990
  16. ^ M. Ginatempo L. Sandri “L’Italia delle Città. Sec XIII XVI” Le Lettere 1990
  17. ^ P.M. Hoenberg L.Hollen Lees : “The Making of Urban Europe 1000-1950” Harvard University Press 1985
  18. ^ M. Ginatempo L. Sandri “L’Italia delle Città. Sec XIII XVI” Le Lettere 1990
  19. ^ M. Ginatempo L. Sandri “L’Italia delle Città. Sec XIII XVI” Le Lettere 1990
  20. ^ M. Ginatempo L. Sandri “L’Italia delle Città. Sec XIII XVI” Le Lettere 1990
  21. ^ P.M. Hoenberg L.Hollen Lees : “The Making of Urban Europe 1000-1950” Harvard University Press 1985
  22. ^ M. Ginatempo L. Sandri “L’Italia delle Città. Sec XIII XVI” Le Lettere 1990
  23. ^ Cadre histoire
  24. ^ P.M. Hoenberg L.Hollen Lees : “The Making of Urban Europe 1000-1950” Harvard University Press 1985
  25. ^ Smith (2005), p. 411
  26. ^ Teotihuacan Introduction
  27. ^ P.M. Hoenberg L.Hollen Lees : “The Making of Urban Europe 1000-1950” Harvard University Press 1985
  28. ^ M. Ginatempo L. Sandri “L’Italia delle Città. Sec XIII XVI” Le Lettere 1990
  29. ^ P.M. Hoenberg L.Hollen Lees : “The Making of Urban Europe 1000-1950” Harvard University Press 1985
  30. ^ Gordon, Andrew: "A Modern History of Japan from Tokugawa Times to the Present". Oxford University Press, 2003. p23. (As of 1721).
  31. ^ a b Sansom, George (1963). "A History of Japan: 1615-1867." Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. p113. Note: These figures exclude military (samurai) population, which could account for a considerable portion of the population.
  32. ^ P.M. Hoenberg L.Hollen Lees : “The Making of Urban Europe 1000-1950” Harvard University Press 1985
  33. ^ P.M. Hoenberg L.Hollen Lees : “The Making of Urban Europe 1000-1950” Harvard University Press 1985
  34. ^ P.M. Hoenberg L.Hollen Lees : “The Making of Urban Europe 1000-1950” Harvard University Press 1985
  35. ^ P.M. Hoenberg L.Hollen Lees : “The Making of Urban Europe 1000-1950” Harvard University Press 1985


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