Urban Area Map Showcase

[spotila]

This is a project I have been working on for some time now, in an attempt to provide a comprehensive collection for the comparison of the worlds major centers' urban spread. Those in the Australian forum will be familiar with the maps already. Please be aware that each of these takes a significant amount of time to make. The idea was inspired by Shiro's old maps. Please use any of the maps for yourself, but do give credit where due. If you would like to see your city, please let me know.

Note: Every red map in this thread is at exactly the same scale (within 0.05 km altitude). They are designed to show the the extent of the urban spread of an area, not variations in density. Anyone looking to compare density of areas should look elsewhere. Also, every yellow map is to scale with every other yellow map.

Note: The vast majority of maps are places I have not visited, so the accuracy of the maps are based on what I can see in adequate detail in Google Earth, or have prior knowledge of. I welcome advice on updating accuracy, but pm me if you must.

Note: Mods have allowed this thread on the strict condition that there be no city vs city talk - please avoid any comments of this nature. Also, if you'd like to post any maps you've made yourself, please provide links rather than posting the image itself.


Cities so Far: Anchorage, Athens, Atlanta, Auckland, Baghdad, Belfast, Birmingham, Brasília, Brisbane-Gold Coast, Budapest, Buenos Aires, Buffalo, Cairns, Calgary, Cape Town, Caracas, Casablanca, Charlotte, Chicago, Christchurch, Copenhagen-Malmö, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Detroit, Dublin, Durban, Edmonton, Golden Horseshoe, Hamburg, Havana, Houston, Indianapolis, Istanbul, Kansas City, Karachi, Kinshasa-Brazzaville, Kuwait, La Paz, Las Vegas, Lausanne-Geneva, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Manchester-Liverpool, Manila, Melbourne, Mexicali, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Monterrey, Montreal, Mumbai, New Orleans, Oslo, Ottawa, Paris, Pearl River Delta, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Port-au-Prince, Portland (OR), Quebec City, Quito, Raleigh/Winston-Salem, Randstad, Rhine-Ruhr, Riyadh, Rochester, Rome, Sacramento, Santiago, Santo Domingo, San Antonio, San Diego-Tijuana, San Francisco Bay Area (currently down), São Paulo, St. Louis, Sydney, Tallinn, Townsville, Tulsa, Tunis, Vancouver, Washington-Baltimore, Wellington, Winnipeg, Zurich

[spotila]

To start us off, two wonderful cities from the United States:

Pittsburgh, PA
City Population: 305,704
Metro Population: 2,447,393


Las Vegas, NV
Updated! Now much more accurate - 08/02/2012
City Population: 583,756
Metro Population: 1,951,269


Many more to come

[aaabbbccc]

cool I like it , do you have Orlando Florida ?

[spotila]

No Orlando yet - but it will be done soon.

Next up, a French juggernaut and a multicultural African paradise:

Paris, France
City Population: 2,211,297
Metro Population: 11,899,544
Image updated - now oriented north, entire map overhauled to be more detailed and accurate


Cape Town, South Africa
Metro Population: 3,497,097

[Manitopiaaa]

Wow, I love it. What is the source for metro populations though? Wikipedia? Respective Census Bureaus? Either way, can't wait to see more!

[gladisimo]

I feel like we've had one of these threads before...

Either way, good effort, and good idea to keep them at the same zoom

[spotila]

Originally Posted by Manitopiaaa

What is the source for metro populations though? Wikipedia? Respective Census Bureaus?

At this stage just Wikipedia yea, but I'm happy to update any of the figures with more recent/accurate ones if given.

Originally Posted by gladisimo

I feel like we've had one of these threads before...

Either way, good effort, and good idea to keep them at the same zoom

Cheers. We haven't had anything quite the same as this in the past. Having them at different zooms would defeat the entire purpose
_______________

Next up, a booming Canadian metropolis, and a city dubbed "The City of Sails"

Calgary, AB
City Population: 988,193
Metro Population: 1,230,248


Auckland, New Zealand
City Population: 1,354,900
Metro Population: 1,462,000

[spotila]

Up next, a wonderful sprawling Texan urban mass, and the first of many cities that required stitching due to it's immense size

Houston, TX
City Population: 2,099,451
Metro Population: 5,946,800

[the spliff fairy]

THIS ISNT TO SCALE

London would be pretty hard to delineate, the (deteriorating) Green Belt means many suburbs
are interspersed with greenery with a peppering effect of light pink urban developments - often denser
than the city proper that is naturally interspersed with myriad city parks. IT connects up fingers of urbanity
right from the edges of the pic west to east, and in the south:

[spotila]

Yes you're right - that is the main reason I haven't even begun to take on London yet. Honestly it's daunting

[spotila]

Next, a modern Latin American metropolis, and the home of the Indy 500

Santiago de Chile
Metro Population: 7,200,000


Indianapolis, IN
City Population: 829,718
Metro Population: 1,756,241

[Galro]

Originally Posted by spotila

Next, a modern Latin American metropolis, and the home of the Indy 500

Santiago de Chile
City Population: 200,792
Metro Population: 7,200,000

That's a very small downtown consider its metro population.

[aaabbbccc]

keep it going This is so cool I like this

[spotila]

Originally Posted by Galro

That's a very small downtown consider its metro population.

That's what I thought - can any Chileans confirm this figure?
_________________

Up next, one of the highest major cities on Earth, and the self-proclaimed sports capital of the world

Quito, Ecuador
City Population: 2,697,698
Metro Population: 3,342,201


Melbourne, Australia
Metro Population: 4,077,036

[Mike____]

This is a map of an area around my "city" Ninove
should have around 30.000 to 50.000 inhabitants in this picture..
Credits go to me since i made this one...
as you can see my country has a very bad urban planning
Zoom: 10.5km

[Manitopiaaa]

Originally Posted by spotila

That's what I thought - can any Chileans confirm this figure?

That's the population of the commune which is probably the most appropriate. Communes in Chile have their own mayors and city councils though so they are akin to most city definitions. When most people think of Santiago though, they don't necessarily refer to just the Commune of Santiago but typically Santiago Province and just Greater Santiago in general. The structure is kind of like in Australia where Perth only has around 20k people yet the metro area is approaching 2 million

[Cristovão471]

Originally Posted by spotila

Melbourne, Australia
Metro Population: 4,077,036

I believe the population of all the urban areas combined would probs be around 4.5 million? It's shocking how far Melbourne sprawls, it really needs to stop.

[BearCave]

Houston is HUUUUUUGE!!!

[snowland]

Originally Posted by Manitopiaaa

That's the population of the commune which is probably the most appropriate. Communes in Chile have their own mayors and city councils though so they are akin to most city definitions. When most people think of Santiago though, they don't necessarily refer to just the Commune of Santiago but typically Santiago Province and just Greater Santiago in general. The structure is kind of like in Australia where Perth only has around 20k people yet the metro area is approaching 2 million

Yeah. Actually the commune Santiago Centro (200k) is kind of a district in other cities (but it has its own mayor). The city (includes here Providencia, Las Condes, Peñalolen, San Miguel, Lo Prado, Pudahuel, etc. All of this is not the metro area, but communes that in fact are the whole city) extends to 6000k and the metro area is approaching 7500k.

PD 1: Can't wait to see Buenos Aires. I have it here, but I don't want to disturb your thread.

PD 2: Houston is the sprawling capital, ya?

[earthJoker]

When I go to 100km zoom I got a different scale than on these pictures as the scale depends on the window size in google earth. Can you tell me your window size? Then I can make one of Zürich.