 ew
Yorkers are not alone among urbanites in thinking their city to
be the center of the world. If you spend any significant amount
of time in London, or Paris, or Beijing, or Madrid, you will realize
that the locals believe that their hometown stands at the geographical
center of all that matters.
It has always been thus. The residents of Rome, the world’s
largest city about 2,000 years ago, liked to note that all roads
led to their metropolis.
But for the great cities of the world, fame can be fleeting. Rome,
the eternal city, lost its status as the world’s largest about
1,700 years ago. And some of the members of the global top five
in 100 A.D. don’t even exist any longer.
The shifting fortunes of the world’s largest cities speak volumes
about the vast economic, technological, and social trends that have
swept the world throughout the last two millennia. Well into the
Middle Ages, Asia was frequently more advanced in many areas than
Europe. As a result, it was home to some of the globe’s largest
concentrations of population.
Once the industrial revolution caught hold, however, Western cities
experienced massive population and economic growth. By 1900, the
world’s largest five cities were all in either Europe or the
U.S. One of the newcomers to the 1900 list was our home – New
York.
Indeed, the self-professed financial, media, fashion, and advertising
capital of the world is a relative neophyte onto the world scene.
In 1,700, when Yedo, Japan, counted 688,000 souls, Gotham was nothing
more than a warren of streets in southern Manhattan and some farms.
And New York’s reign at the top has been relatively brief,
in historical terms. Today, the New York Metropolitan area sits
a distant second behind Tokyo. And when a global census is taken
in 2020, it is likely the Big Apple will be surpassed in size by
the likes of Mexico City and Bombay.
As the Romans might have put it, sic transit gloria.
Daniel Gross is editor of Sternbusiness. |
The
World's Largest Cities in...
100
A.D.
Rome
Loyang, China
Seleucia, Persia
Alexandria
Antioch
1000 A.D.
Cordova, Spain
Kaifeng, China
Constantinople
Angkor, Cambodia
Kyoto, Japan
1500 A.D.
Peking
Vijayanagar, S. India
Cairo
Hangchow, China
Tabriz, Persia
1700
Constantinople
Yedo, Japan
Peking
London
Paris
1900
London
New York
Paris
Berlin
Chicago
1925
New York
London
Tokyo
Paris
Berlin
1950
New York
London
Tokyo
Paris
Shanghai
1975
Tokyo
New York
Osaka, Japan
Mexico City
Moscow
2000 (estimates)
Tokyo
New York
Mexico City
Bombay
Sao Paulo, Brazil
|
450,000
420,000
250,000
250,000
150,000
450,000
400,000
300,000
200,000
175,000
672,000
500,000
400,000
250,000
250,000
700,000
688,000
650,000
550,000
530,000
6,480,000
4,242,000
3,330,000
2,707,000
1,717,000
7,774,000
7,742,000
5,300,000
4,800,000
4,013,000
12,463,000
8,860,000
7,000,000
5,900,000
5,406,000
23,000,000
17,100,000
15,500,000
11,300,000
10,700,000
28,000,000
20,100,000
18,100,000
18,000,000
17,700,000
|
Source:
"4,000 Years of Urban Growth: An Historical Census,"
Teritius Chandler (St. David’s University Press, 1987)
|
