Metropolitan Tokyo has 32.45 million people, easily the world’s largest
Here are the largest cities in history, though some would count as mere towns by today’s standards.
First, the long view:
Here is the largest city every thousand years. I will use Ian Morris’s numbers from 2010 since he breaks it down that way and goes back the furthest. Size is given in millions, country names are the present ones:
- 8000 BC: 0.0005: Mureybet, Syria
- 7000 BC: 0.0010: Beidha, Jordan
- 6000 BC: 0.0030: Catalhoyuk, Turkey
- 5000 BC: 0.0040: Tell Brak, Syria
- 4000 BC: 0.0050: Uruk, Iraq
- 3000 BC: 0.0450: Uruk, Iraq
- 2000 BC: 0.0600: Memphis, Egypt
- 1000 BC: 0.0350: Haojing, China
- 0001 AD: 1.0000: Rome, Italy
- 1000 AD: 1.0000: Kaifeng, China
- 2000 AD: 28.4000: Tokyo, Japan
So Mureybet had only 500 people but it was still, based on current knowledge, the biggest town in the world!
How much top city size increased in each millennium (where 2.00, for example, means it doubled):
- 8000 BC: 2.00
- 7000 BC: 3.00
- 6000 BC: 1.30
- 5000 BC: 1.25
- 4000 BC: 9.00
- 3000 BC: 1.33
- 2000 BC: 0.58
- 1000 BC: 28.57
- 0001 AD: 1.00
- 1000 AD: 28.40
The biggest changes belong to the last thousand years (rise of industry), the thousand years before Christ (rise of empires) and from 4000 BC to 3000 BC (rise of civilization).
At the current rate the top city in 3000 should have 800 million people, probably in Asia. Hong Kong and cities nearby already have 120 million.
Now here is the largest city every hundred years. I will use George Modelski’s numbers from 2003 since he breaks it down that way and goes back the furthest, again in millions:
- 2500 BC: 0.060: Lagash, Iraq
- 2400 BC: 0.050: Mari, Syria
- 2300 BC: 0.080: Girsu, Iraq
- 2200 BC: 0.050: Girsu, Iraq
- 2100 BC: 0.100: Ur, Iraq
- 2000 BC: 0.040: Isin, Iraq
- 1900 BC: 0.040: Isin, Iraq
- 1800 BC: 0.060: Mari, Syria
- 1700 BC: 0.060: Babylon, Iraq
- 1600 BC: 0.075: Avaris, Egypt
- 1500 BC: 0.060: Thebes, Egypt
- 1400 BC: 0.080: Thebes, Egypt
- 1300 BC: 0.120: Yinxu, China
- 1200 BC: 0.160: Pi-Ramses, Egypt
- 1100 BC: 0.120: Pi-Ramses: Egypt
- 1000 BC: 0.120: Thebes, Egypt
- 900 BC: 0.125: Haojing, China
- 800 BC: 0.125: Haojing, China
- 700 BC: 0.100: Thebes, Egypt
- 600 BC: 0.200: Babylon, Iraq
- 500 BC: 0.200: Bablyon, Iraq
- 400 BC: 0.320: Xiadu, China
- 300 BC: 0.500: Carthage, Tunisia
- 200 BC: 0.600: Alexandria, Egypt
- 100 BC: 1.000: Alexandria, Egypt
- 001 AD: 0.800: Rome, Italy
- 100 AD: 1.000: Rome, Italy
- 200 AD: 1.200: Rome, Italy
- 300 AD: 1.000: Rome, Italy
- 400 AD: 0.800: Rome, Italy
- 500 AD: 0.500: Constantinople, Turkey
- 600 AD: 0.600: Constantinople, Turkey
- 700 AD: 1.000: Chang’an, China
- 800 AD: 0.800: Chang’an, China
- 900 AD: 0.900: Baghdad, Iraq
- 1000 AD: 1.200: Baghdad, Iraq
- 1100 AD: 1.200: Baghdad, Iraq
- 1200 AD: 1.000: Baghdad, Iraq
- 1300 AD: 1.500: Hangzhou, China
- 1400 AD: 1.000: Jinling, China
- 1500 AD: 1.000: Beijing, China
- 1600 AD: 1.000: Beijing, China
- 1700 AD: 1.000: Ayutthaya, Thailand
- 1800 AD: 1.100: Beijing, China
- 1900 AD: 8.500: London, UK
- 2000 AD: 28.400: Tokyo, Japan (from Ian Morris)
Three countries had the top city 72% of the time: Iraq, China and Egypt.
Here is how much top city size increased in each century:
- 2500 BC: 0.83
- 2400 BC: 1.60
- 2300 BC: 0.63
- 2200 BC: 2.00
- 2100 BC: 0.40
- 2000 BC: 1.oo
- 1900 BC: 1.50
- 1800 BC: 1.00
- 1700 BC: 1.25
- 1600 BC: 0.80
- 1500 BC: 1.33
- 1400 BC: 1.50
- 1200 BC: 0.75
- 1100 BC: 1.00
- 1000 BC: 1.04
- 900 BC: 1.00
- 800 BC: 0.80
- 700 BC: 2.00
- 600 BC: 1.00
- 500 BC: 1.60
- 400 BC: 1.56
- 300 BC: 1.20
- 200 BC: 1.67
- 100 BC: 0.80
- 001 AD: 1.25
- 100 AD: 1.20
- 200 AD: 0.83
- 300 AD: 0.80
- 400 AD: 0.63
- 500 AD: 1.20
- 600 AD: 1.67
- 700 AD: 0.80
- 800 AD: 1.13
- 900 AD: 1.33
- 1000 AD: 1.00
- 1100 AD: 0.83
- 1200 AD: 1.50
- 1300 AD: 0.67
- 1400 AD: 1.00
- 1500 AD: 1.00
- 1600 AD: 1.00
- 1700 AD: 1.10
- 1800 AD: 7.73
- 1900 AD: 3.34
Sharpest rises:
- 7.73: London in the 1800s
- 3.34: Tokyo in the 1900s
- 2.00: Ur in the 2100s BC
- 2.00: Babylon in the 600s BC
- 1.67: Alexandria in the 100s BC
- 1.67: Chang’an in the 600s
Sharpest falls:
- 0.40: Ur in the 2000s BC
- 0.63: Rome in the 400s
- 0.63: Girsu in the 2200s BC
- 0.67: Hangzhou in the 1300s
- 0.75: Pi-Ramses in the 1100s BC
Population milestones (using Morris’s and Modelski’s numbers together):
- 8000 BC: 500
- 7000 BC: 1,000
- 4000 BC: 5,000
- 3000 BC: 10,000
- 2500 BC: 50,000
- 2100 BC: 100,000
- 300 BC: 500,000
- 100 BC: 1,000,000
- 1900 AD: 5,000,000
- 2000 AD: 10,000,000
See also:
Pretty interesting stuff. It breaks the monotony and sort of puts things into perspective. I suppose I’m just outside of the “Piedmont Atlantic” according to the map (essentially Atlanta).
Indeed, the Pearl River Delta region, an area that compares to Greater Los Angeles (with Orange County / Santa Barbara / San Bernadino), already has 120 million. There are several cities in the region which have around 7-10 million (eg, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan, Zhuhai, Foshan, Macau, etc.). It is like putting greater metropolitan Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, Dallas, Washington, Boston and Atlanta and Las Vegas all inside the state of New Jersey.
Does the world have a larger megalopolis? Maybe Tokyo/Nagoya/ Osaka / Kyoto comes next?
excellent post! now where are the guys who always brag how white europeans were on the edge of the development. Not in urbanisation most of the time and many scientists cosider cities as the most developed forms of human civilizations, at least the most complex.
Doesn’t Great Zimbabwe get a mention?
I find it interesting that africa is’nt even in the picture.
@ Jefe
Tokyo has a little over 13 million as of 2011. Nagoya, Osaka and Kyoto are a lot smaller. Only ranging from 2 to almost 3 million. You really the notice the difference travelling from Tokyo to one of the less populated cities.
I think Shanghai may have the highest population at 23 million.
@ Iris,
As Abagond mentioned, although Tokyo may have a little over 13 million, its greater urbanized area (including, eg, Yokohama) does indeed have over 30 million. I stayed in Tokyo for a few months.
Abagond was referring to the urbanized area, not the population within the city limits.
Greater New York City has over 20 million — can easily compare to Shanghai– places I am both very familiar with. Greater Mexico city also has over 20 million.
But, actually, that was not my point at all. I was talking about the huge megalopolis in the Pearl River Delta region — with 120 million, I think no other great megalopolis in the world compares close. Even the East Coast USA (BosWash) or the Tokyo/Nagoya / Osaka areas (or even eastern China – Shanghai / Suzhou, Wuxi, Nanjing, Hangzhou / Ningbo) added together are only half as much.
@Mbeti
But Egypt- which IS IN AFRICA — is mentioned at least 6 times above.
Nevertheless, I believe that the figures don’t name and reflect cities in Africa south-of-Sahara, or population density from ancient times, because the archaeological work is no where near concluded.
Agriculture was practiced in Africa’s south-of-Sahara since the 3rd millennium BC. Because of this, cities were able to develop as centres of non-agricultural activity. Exactly when this first happened is still a topic of archeological and historical investigation. Historians working in the area, point out that African cities possessed all the characteristics – such as the political processes, military interventions, economic networks, cultural disseminiation, and ideological change that all make up city life.
Western scholarship has tended to focus on cities in Europe and Mesopotamia, but emerging archaeological evidence indicates that urbanization occurred south of the Sahara well before the influence of Arab urban culture.
The oldest sites documented thus far are from around 500 AD including Awdaghust, Kumbi-Saleh the ancient capital of Ghana, and Maranda a center located on a trade rout between Egypt and Gao/Kawkaw. Basically, from the west to the east.
When I say “emerging archaeological evidence”, I mean, for instance, this project called “Mapping Africa’s Visible Archaeology,” which began in 1996. It says its purpose is “to map all of Africa’s visible archaeology, beginning with Nigeria and West Africa.” The scope of its findings point to:
“Between Lake Chad and the Atlantic Ocean, there are about 10,000 townwalls, 25% or more of them on deserted sites. They represent the largest concentration of past urban civilization in black Africa; yet only a handful [have] been surveyed. There are also about 250, 000 unsurveyed tumuli, several million uncharted iron-smelting sites, and an unknown number of ancient terracotta sites, most of which have been looted. Old aerial photographs and more modern remote-sensing methodologies offer an opportunity to record much of what will otherwise soon be lost altogether…”
I can’t imagine the scale of the undertaking — and I don’t know what limitations of resources burden the archaeologists on this project.
http://jwsr.ucr.edu/archive/vol10/number3/pdf/jwsr-v10n3-kea.pdf
Other archaeologists confirm the observation of significant and early cities in the continent.. Researchers on this (or similar) project(s) note that the areas under study are characterized by “an amazing density of settlement,” “several massive habitation sites.”
From the same link above:
“The flood plain of the Middle Niger of West Africa is lined with hundreds of ancient tells rivaling those of Asia both in area and in clues to the emergence of city life…. The Middle Niger is dominated by numerous monumental tumuli …”
(“Tells”, or tumuli, are artificial hills, formed entirely from the debris of human occupation.)
Some indicators:
The city of Awdaghust (or Aoudaghost) in southern Mauritania in west Africa was described by Islamic observers during the 10th century as:
“…a large town, populous…” place. (according to al-Bakri in his “Book of Routes and Realms”).
Regarding the Ghana Empire or Wagadou Empire (that existed before 830) was located in what is now southeastern Mauritania, and Western Mali: estimated that the town/city would have accommodated between 15,000 and 20,000 inhabitants. Raymond Mauny (the archaeologist who had made most findings in this area) has acknowledged that this is an enormous population for a town in the Sahara with a very limited supply of water.
One book of the books that charts the history of Africa’s ancient cities:
History of African Cities South of the Sahara
As far as Southern Africa goes, archaeologists believe that the “Adam’s Calender” region, may have had at least 1 million people living and working here some 2000 – 4000 years ago.
The problem with this theory, is that the population models and our history books suggest that the there were no more than 200,000 people living in the greater part of southern Africa between 2000 – 4000 years ago. It is quite obvious that it would require a much larger population to build so many stone structures.
The site of was found Adam’s Calendar in 2003, quite by accident – not an unusual thing where ancient Africa’s history is concerned.
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sumer_anunnaki/esp_sumer_annunaki35.htm
@bulanik: I think that list may change in the future as we get more knowledge from Africa or from Amazonas. I once read that there where huge “villages” on the Amazon basin, which went on miles and miles along the great river routes. These were big on any scale and population was quite tense. This reagion revived the stories of El Dorado and amazons, hence the spanish and portugese conquistadores, who were looking for the El Dorado in the region, gave the name Amazonas.
@sam
The list is already arcane!
I had no idea about the stuff about the Amazon basin. Incredible.
So many things that we think of “facts” and “knowledge” today are going to get thrown on their head. We are going to be looking at the African continent and South America rather differently as more information comes to light in the future decades.
Something I wrote about in an earlier draft of this post is the Western bias it has:
1. Both lists are made by Westerners, who will, without even trying, know way more about the great cities of their own past than those of Africa, India, China, etc.
2. There is way more archaeology done in the Middle East than almost anywhere else outside of Europe. That comes from a view of the past Westerners got from their Bibles, which, archaeologically, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
3. The West has way more money to support archaeology than other parts of the world, so naturally way more is known of their past.
The exception that proves the rule in all this is Java Man: the remains of a Homo erectus from 500,000 years ago that were found on the island of Java. The man who discovered it thought that mankind came from the lost continent of Lemuria which long ago sank under the Indian Ocean. Completely wrong – there never was such a continent – but it led him to look where no one else was looking.
^Java man. This discovery was basically the right side of a chin from the lower jaw with three teeth attached to it. A year after that discovery they unearthed a detached primate molar tooth nearby. Two months later they found an intact skullcap about one meter away from the tooth A year following that, they found an nearly complete left thigh bone,which was located between 10 to 15 meters from the skullcap. This is the extent of the entire Java Man fossil.
If so much can be extrapolated from a fragment of bone, then there is a banquet of evidence that has been disregarded or mis-attributed to the history of cities outside today’s western world!
The city of Aksum/Axum in northern Ethiopia, plus others, such as Yeha, Hawulti-Melazo, Matara, Adulis, and Qohaito, the last 3 of which are now in Eritrea – are also rarely mentioned in the context early cities in ancient history.
Axum/Aksum was described as “bustling” and “a metropolis” in ancient accounts, one being Periplus of the Red Sea. This particular account states that Axum was an important market place for ivory, which was exported throughout the ancient world, and, that the city’s ruler of 1st century AD also controlled 2 harbours on the Red Sea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periplus_of_the_Erythraean_Sea
The Indus Valley Civilization (also known as Harappan culture) has dated approximately 6000 BCE. The 2 greatest cities, Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, emerged circa 2600 BCE along the Indus River valley in Punjab (now in Pakistan).
The city of Harappa is believed to have had as many as 23,500 residents (according to Brian Fagan, in his study:”People of the Earth: World pre-history”).
An excerpt from an Pakistani-made documentary about Harappa’s urban life:
Indian and Pakistani researchers put the figure of the city population closer to 200,000 people at the height of Harappa urban habitation (circa 2000 BCE).
@Abagond
Doesn’t Morris place Waset (Thebes) as the largest city circa 1000 BC?
Nevertheless, I tend to agree moreso with Tertius Chandler that most of the world’s largest known cities prior to 500 BC were in the Nile Valley…Morris doesn’t even mention Abdu (Abydos), which was undoubtedly one of the world’s largest cities, and the world’s first city of pilgrimmage.
Considering archaeological evidence, I think it’s utterly absurd to assume Uruk, Mureybet and those other Mesopotamian cities were larger than those of the Nile prior to 3000 BC. Do Morris or Modelski actually use some type of measurable way to determine the size of ancient cities?
@resjan:
I once a document where they were trying to figure out a huge remains of walls in somewhere in western China (it was on desert region), what and when etc. If I remember correctly the walls were simply huge, like miles long and 30 meters high and even thicker (they now looked like huge earth banks). Some of the archeologists were trying to explain the remains as fortress (for tens of thousands, or more???) others as some sort of camel corrals etc. For me they looked like any city walls, except they were really old and nobody knew anything about them. In the end they could not come up with any explanation since they found no reference to that place in any ancient texts.
Thing is, we only know what somebody has studied. The old cities built on wood or even older ones consisting tents or lighter structures have dissappeared without of trace. For all we know, there could have been cities of thousands of people before ice age. We simply do not know. Interesting still.
@sam
“The old cities built on wood or even older ones consisting tents or lighter structures have dissappeared without of trace. For all we know, there could have been cities of thousands of people before ice age.”
I’m fully aware that there could be many uncovered cities, and therefore I am viewing these lists as the largest KNOWN cities of the world.
However, if Morris and Modelski contend that certain ancient cities were the largest, then I expect to see some methodology (I haven’t read their books personally, so I don’t know whether or not they’ve adopted methodologies). Even if such cities were not built of stone, there are human remains and other artefacts that could be used as evidence to bolster their claims.