City Sizes

Will Baude links to this list of the world's largest cities in the course of reflecting on how easily one's geographical perceptions can get outdated in this changing world. For example, he's surprised that Sao Paulo is now third (after Tokyo and Mexico City).

I had the opposite reaction. Having heard a fair bit about the world's changing demographics but not having done any formal reading about it, my perceptions have overshot the mark in terms of how much city size ranks have shifted. So I was surprised to find that Washington-Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Boston all still outrank the major US growth centres like Dallas-Ft. Worth, Houston, and Phoenix. Lagos is a surprisingly small 26th on the list, and Buenos Aires hasn't surpassed London. On an Australian note, I hadn't realized that Sydney beats Melbourne by such a comfortable margin (as well as edging out Berlin).