Which cities are MEGACITIES?

[capslock]

Originally Posted by Checker

To make athing clear:

London city population: 7.5million
Paris city population: around 10million

London metro: 12miilion maybe 16(but thats also a very stretched number and would include citys like Brighton on the british south coast.)
Paris metro: 12 to 15 million.

Moscow city population: well over 10million
metro: should be around 17 to 18 million

Still not quite right.... there was a thread on this before that Justme took the lead on which very thoroughly went through the different definitions used in different countries and then compared like with like for all European cities.

Your city populations look about right (if you call them urban populations), although some put London closer to 8 million these days. Paris does come out bigger on this measure due to the structure of the city, as many have already said up-thread.

You've then taken London's urban (or perhaps administrative) area and called it the metro area. London's metro area is I believe about 16 / 17 million compared to Paris's 15million or so - and no, that doesn't include Brighton.

The thread I talked about just now also looked at taking the equibalent of the US's CMSA population count and there were arguments that you could stretch London's sphere of influence out further to the point where it measured 21 million or so, but to me this was always more of an academic exercise and mainly to put to bed the believe that all American cities were SO much larger than European.

The thing to remember with all of these is that the old model of a city within it's walls surrounded by fields doesn't work any more. You cannot compare places like the Ruhr with the Randstad with London just on their populations alone, without understanding the very different urban structures that underpin them. Then again there are cultural issues too. In the UK, Manchester and Liverpool are very close to physically merging - does that mean they feel like one city? Quite the opposite.

[coth]

Originally Posted by SHiRO

Moscow city is over 10 million but it's metro can't be between 17 and 18 million, because Moscow plus Moscow Oblast is below 17 million. Moscow Oblast covers an area of 85,000 sq km, which is more than two times the size of the Netherlands and nearly four times the size of the London metro. Beyond that area is not commutable to the extend it ads to the metro area in ANY of the known methods.

1. Moscow province is 47thous sq km. But it doesn't matter. Most of settlements concentrated along the railways. Most of lands between railways especially on outskirts of provice just big forests.
2. City of Moscow and Moscow province making much over 17mln, not below - 10,5 city and 7,1 is province of registered inhabitants. Plues estimately 4-4,5mln of non registered inhabitants. Just a bureaucracy. But I don't include them to my figures.
3. All lines of commuter networks of Moscow going ahead of province border, up to Tver', Aleksandrov, Bolakirevo, Vladimir, Ryazan', Pavelets, Tula, Kaluga, Vyaz'ma etc. Same goes to buses.

[GNU]

Originally Posted by eddied

Still not quite right.... there was a thread on this before that Justme took the lead on which very thoroughly went through the different definitions used in different countries and then compared like with like for all European cities.

Your city populations look about right (if you call them urban populations), although some put London closer to 8 million these days. Paris does come out bigger on this measure due to the structure of the city, as many have already said up-thread.

You've then taken London's urban (or perhaps administrative) area and called it the metro area. London's metro area is I believe about 16 / 17 million compared to Paris's 15million or so - and no, that doesn't include Brighton.

The thread I talked about just now also looked at taking the equibalent of the US's CMSA population count and there were arguments that you could stretch London's sphere of influence out further to the point where it measured 21 million or so, but to me this was always more of an academic exercise and mainly to put to bed the believe that all American cities were SO much larger than European.

The thing to remember with all of these is that the old model of a city within it's walls surrounded by fields doesn't work any more. You cannot compare places like the Ruhr with the Randstad with London just on their populations alone, without understanding the very different urban structures that underpin them. Then again there are cultural issues too. In the UK, Manchester and Liverpool are very close to physically merging - does that mean they feel like one city? Quite the opposite.

I aggree with everything you said there.
Nevertheless the reason why RheinRhur cant be compared to cities like Paris or London results from the fact that its a big agglomeration of cities that are independent from each other.
Nevertheless you would probably have around 10 million people within an hours underground drive.
Its just that in Germany city population are being counted differently.
The same thing applies to France (Paris officially having 2.1 million) or for example Japan (Tokyo officially having around 7 million whereas the real population is around 20 to 30 million)
Frankfurt would be another example etc etc.

Just to give you an example:
Residents in a rheinRhur city wouldnt stay in their city primarily.
Many residents are actually going to Essen (population 600.000) just to do their daily shopping.
Thats why the city is dubbed the shopping city.
Its basically just full with stores and serves as a gigantic shopping centre for the whole region.

[GM]

Originally Posted by CaféTasse

a real kindergarten...

well, anyway the smallest official city on earth in in Belgium : Durbuy with 350 inhabitants (and it is absolutely beautiful; look at www.durbuy.be + go and visit it)

Well, there are thousands and thousands cities (communes) in France which have a lot less than 350 inhabitants.
There are 36,000 communes in France (which represent half of the total number of municipalities in Europe), and some of them have only... 0 inhabitant !

[Cyril]

Paris has certainly NOT 15 million people in its metro area ! It's 11 to 13 million depending on what we count.
Well this thread is once again a Moscow vs. London vs. Paris vs. Rhur... battle.
Almost every week such a thread is created on this forum, it's a bit boring eventually.
Exciting but recurrent...

[snot]

Originally Posted by GM

Well, there are thousands and thousands cities (communes) in France which have a lot less than 350 inhabitants.
There are 36,000 communes in France (which represent half of the total number of municipalities in Europe), and some of them have only... 0 inhabitant !

of course there are thousands of small communes in france, but those are no cities, Durbuy is officially a city not just a municipality that's the point.
Of course a 'city' is just a municipality that have the right to call his self city.
This dates from the middle ages when a city got 'city rights'.

[Manuel]

Originally Posted by Phil

Is central London just the city of London ? Because these pictures really focus on a few square miles, isn't there about 120 sm in inner london ? and isn't Inner London the best thing to compare to Paris ?
The thing is that the urban density London has compares to Paris, but Paris is denser and more urban on a bigger area.
Remember that the city of Paris has not only a higher population density than inner London, but also a higher office density.
That's just the way the 2 cities are...

No Phil, Central London has a higher job density than Central Paris.
As for defining Central London. Physically it's what's inside the inner ring road and statistically it's Camden, Westminster and the City (excluding the south bank of the Thames which is not very much integrated to the CBD anyway...).
That's around 500 000ppl and 1.2-1.5m jobs for a tiny area, smaller than Paris intra muros.

[Manuel]

Originally Posted by rocky

the 18 mln for london is a fantasmatic number said by a lunatic mayor..

well have to wait a few years for official statement= proof. until now i wont believe this figure.
if you include so many towns we could include for paris , rouen (500000), orleans (300000),compiegne creil (100000)

There have been endless threads on this. You should have read them. Some ppl provide accurate information here but cant post them constantly. Check posts of Justme who took the time to ask ppl who know those things and gathered very precise data in an unbiased way.

[Küsel]

There should be really a section about "London Metro" it's getting fucking boring this endless discussion that distroys whole threads since years

[SHiRO]

Originally Posted by coth

1. Moscow province is 47thous sq km. But it doesn't matter. Most of settlements concentrated along the railways. Most of lands between railways especially on outskirts of provice just big forests.
2. City of Moscow and Moscow province making much over 17mln, not below - 10,5 city and 7,1 is province of registered inhabitants. Plues estimately 4-4,5mln of non registered inhabitants. Just a bureaucracy. But I don't include them to my figures.
3. All lines of commuter networks of Moscow going ahead of province border, up to Tver', Aleksandrov, Bolakirevo, Vladimir, Ryazan', Pavelets, Tula, Kaluga, Vyaz'ma etc. Same goes to buses.

I was confused over the 47,000 km (confused with Chongqing). Still it is an area larger then the NL and twice as large as the London metro.

5 million unregistered inhabitants? You gotta be kidding me...Common even to you that must sound as absolute bollocks.

Anyway, people don't commute 200 km.

[coth]

Originally Posted by SHiRO

I was confused over the 47,000 km (confused with Chongqing). Still it is an area larger then the NL and twice as large as the London metro.

5 million unregistered inhabitants? You gotta be kidding me...Common even to you that must sound as absolute bollocks.

Anyway, people don't commute 200 km.

1. Still London metro area is over 18 times larger then Tricity metro. Area is not an indicator.

2. In entire province. Nothing strange in those figures. Moscow is a center of EE migration routes.
first article says about 1,5-3mln estimate for city of moscow, based on ministry estimates
second and third about 1-1,5mln estimate for city of moscow, based on moscow authorities estimates
http://english.mn.ru/english/issue.php?2002-16-16
http://businesspress.ru/newspaper/ar...Id_359000.html
http://www.prime-tass.ru/news/show.a...&ct=interviews

nationalists says about 2-3mln illegals
http://www.regnum.ru/news/529936.html

and that is only moscow, while most of them lives outside of city in province

russia plans to legalize 1mln illegals soon btw.

3. Not much, but some do. But again doesn't matter. It's official commuter network. I have said once. My suburban house is in 180km from my home in Moscow. Just 5km to Tver'. About 1/3 of people in towns there are Muscovites. Another 1/2 are Tverians and other people from Moscow province cities, like Klin. The city is in 95km from Kremlin by narrow, in 10 km from Solnechnogorsk (city under City of Moscow administration) and in 35km from City of Moscow border.

[SHiRO]

You have no clue how metro's are calculated otherwise you wouldn't be making these claims. Just because Muscovites have suburban (second) homes doesn't make the population of that entire area which is 200 km away, ad to Moscow's metro.

[wjfox]

Jesus, what an annoying thread!

All of these stats are pointless anyway... I mean, whichever way you look at it, London rightfully deserves to be called a "megacity".

You only have to look at the picture below to realise why (this only shows a small part of the centre). London is a simply vast city,
with a massive urban population, incredibly extensive transport and infrastructure, gigantic metro area covering most of southern
England, huge amount of international connections, and simply enormous cultural/political/financial influence over the world:-

[pottebaum]

Chuck Norris says London is a megacity. End of story.

[wjfox]

^ Exactly!!

[spyguy]

But how does Martha feel? The BBC Entertainment section?

[coth]

Originally Posted by SHiRO

You have no clue how metro's are calculated otherwise you wouldn't be making these claims. Just because Muscovites have suburban (second) homes doesn't make the population of that entire area which is 200 km away, ad to Moscow's metro.

Since you claiming that metro area is area around the city in 27,5thous sq km because it is london's one - it looks like you have no clue how mtero area is calculating.

i repeat you again. take a commuter belt standard and do calculation of all discricts youself if you so want. and don't forget to present us your work.



@wj
this photo was posted 3 times in this thread

i just post moscow's picture yet again as well


Moscow (48km from left to right). 24 thousand highrises within City of Moscow only plus thousands of more in satellite cities.



without modern districts (28km from top to bottom). this is about end of 80's.

[drfeelgood17]

I thought city vs city was dead long ago...it seems alive & well in this thread!

[drfeelgood17]

Originally Posted by polako

Whoever did the population figures of the urbanized areas at the UN had to be recovering from a three day meth bender putting Tokyo's urbanized area population at 35 million. Its urbanized population as of 2005 was 26.8 million. They should seriously get into rehab, it would help them avoid such obvious mistakes.

I almost agree with there Polako - it would be interesting to know how they came up with 35m!

[Zaki]

Wow, i guess the spirit of city vs city will never die. Some how this has turned from which are the mega cities to which is the biggest city in Europe. And this too without Istanbul which is a clear candidate excluded.