# First cities to reach 1 million people.



## polako

I don't know if anyone ever posted this before. I found this list in a TOP 10 book from 2000. Here are the first cities to reach 1 million people:

1. Rome(Italy)-133 B.C.
2. Alexandria(Egypt)-30 B.C.
3. Angkor(Cambodia)-900
4. Hangzhou(China)-1200
5. London(UK)-1810
6. Paris(France)-1850
7. Beijing(China)-1855
8. Guangzhou(China)-1860
9. Berlin(Germany)-1870
10. Manhattan-1874

Any surprises?


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## eddyk

I remember a list that said Babylon was the former biggest city in the world....being the first to reach 200,000 (or something like that)....and this is like 500/600 years ago.

And London was the First to reach 1m
NY 5m/10m
and Tokyo 20/30m


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## silly thing

where is xian?


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## samsonyuen

Angkor reached 1 million? Wow!


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## frankiego

The list is right !


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## Zaki

eddyk said:


> I remember a list that said Babylon was the former biggest city in the world....being the first to reach 200,000 (or something like that)....and this is like 500/600 years ago.
> 
> And London was the First to reach 1m
> NY 5m/10m
> and Tokyo 20/30m


You read wrong then. Rome was the first to reach a million. Cities reached 200,000 in mesopatania, china, and egypt before 1000 BC. not 500/600 years ago.


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## brooklynprospect

I read somewhere that Tokyo reached 1 million sometime before 1800. 

Actually Japan was fairly developed in the late Edo Period. Just about as developed as it was going to get without an industrial revolution. Perhaps that's one reason why it picked up so quickly on its modernization efforts after Admiral Perry came along.


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## polako

brooklynprospect said:


> I read somewhere that Tokyo reached 1 million sometime before 1800.
> 
> Actually Japan was fairly developed in the late Edo Period. Just about as developed as it was going to get without an industrial revolution. Perhaps that's one reason why it picked up so quickly on its modernization efforts after Admiral Perry came along.


According to the Japanese government Tokyo passed the 1 million mark in 1886, but I just found on some website about Tokyo's history that it had 1.2 million people in the early 1700's, which is very weird. Maybe someone can explain this.


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## Alejandro_MEX

Actually, some of the first cities to reach 1 million people are some of the world's largest cities today. For instance:
Tenochtitlan (Actual Mexico City)
Edo (Actual Tokyo)

Both were the world's largest cities in 1500, like today.


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## Azn_chi_boi

polako said:


> I don't know if anyone ever posted this before. I found this list in a TOP 10 book from 2000. Here are the first cities to reach 1 million people:
> 
> 1. Rome(Italy)-133 B.C.
> 2. Alexandria(Egypt)-30 B.C.
> 3. Angkor(Cambodia)-900
> 4. Hangzhou(China)-1200
> 5. London(UK)-1810
> 6. Paris(France)-1850
> 7. Beijing(China)-1855
> 8. Guangzhou(China)-1860
> 9. Berlin(Germany)-1870
> 10. Manhattan-1874
> 
> Any surprises?


Great List... no surprises...


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## Chibcha2k

yes....where are the mayan cities?

I think Copan, reached 5 million inhabitants


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## United-States-of-America

Damn. Look at ancient Rome!


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## brooklynprospect

Chibcha2k said:


> yes....where are the mayan cities?
> 
> I think Copan, reached 5 million inhabitants


Estas bromando?


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## C-Kompii

silly thing said:


> where is xian?


I also read that Xi'an (one of the ancient capitals of China and originally known as Chang'an) had a population well over 1 million during the Tang Dynasty (618 A.D - 907 A.D). It was a center of trade & commerce where all the silk roads ended up, as well as a city of great cultural importance.

-G'day-


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## Oaronuviss

I heard London was the first.
The cities before that barely had that many people in their entire countries.
It's doubtful that Rome had 1 million at such a young time in earth's history.
I'm not arguing this as fact, as I'm not sure...it just seems rather odd.


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## frankiego

Actually douring the Roman empire , population was about 1.5 mils


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## Küsel

In the 3rd century Rome could have reached 3 mio, during Julius Caesar it was already 1.5 mio.

Anyone knows how big Ur, Uruk and Babylon were?


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## polako

After browsing the internet for a while I'm not sure that this list is actually right. The only thing that stops me from updating it is that my beloved island of Manhattan is in it.


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## BobDaBuilder

Also heard that Rome did get up to a million. I am sure in China or asia somewhere in that period they had large cities also.

I remember Sun Tzu mention in the Art of War very large human armies of 100,000 men or more which were massive in that period so you gotta say that China must have had big towns too.


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## Küsel

MC is still far from 30mio, sorry. The only metro that reached this number is Tokyo and if you want the multicentred Pearl River Delta. But Mexico is somewhere between 19 and 23mio. I don't know why its numbers were always exaggarated. Already in the end 70s they said it's the biggest city with 20mio. The first was not true and the second neither....


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## Tubeman

samsonyuen said:


> Angkor reached 1 million? Wow!


Have you been? I advise it... Truly amazing. The scale of the temples and the area of land they collectively cover is mind-boggling.


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## frankiego

U should have beeing listen to that history lessons in college !
Rome was the first !


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## ladolcevita

I'm not sure if the list is accurate, could you provide a link?

Look at this research done by Tertius Chandler, in his compilation of the largest cities throughout history, *"Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth: An Historical Census"*; Rome in AD 25, which is at its peak, and the most populous city in the world, only has a population of roughly 450,000.

Here is the link

Again, could give us the sources because I can't find it on the net.


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## polako

^ The list is in the TOP 10 book from 2000-page 23.


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## Indexi

silly thing said:


> where is xian?


China


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## Küsel

:lol: - I nearly wanted to give this anwser too


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## touchring

I think Xian should have the highest possibility to have 1 million people as the capital of the despot Qin Shihuang in 230BC.

Let's not forget that the Army of Terra Cotta Warriors in Xian alone took a few hundred thousands to 1million workers to complete -http://www.asianartmall.com/clay.html.

The despot himself had a 'professional army' of 1 million soldiers. It is more likely that the city proper itself has only a few hundred thousand people, while there are many villages surrounding the city that make up the 1 million.


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## Gatis

Some sources say that Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka had more than one million around 3 century AD, but most estimates are lower - half million. They got amazing highrise temples then - several more than 100 m high.


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## jezahx

Oaronuviss said:


> I heard London was the first.
> The cities before that barely had that many people in their entire countries.
> It's doubtful that Rome had 1 million at such a young time in earth's history.
> I'm not arguing this as fact, as I'm not sure...it just seems rather odd.


no, london was not the first. by the end of roman history the entire empire had about four million people residing in it. and not to be mean but 'such a young time in earths history' i think you mean human history whitch still makes it an inaccurate claim. and i promise its not odd haha.:cheers:


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## RobertWalpole

May I ask why the Blue Banana is not on this list? Where is Anderson Gemiez?


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## -Corey-

NYC was the first mega city to reach over 2 million, then 3, then 4.. etc.


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## Skyrazer

The problem with these lists are that they're highly speculative as I'm sure back in ancient times, methods (if any at all) used to tally populations wouldn't be exactly the most accurate; hence we got some people saying x city had so many millions in whatever year only to have someone quoting another source stating that x city had a population a portion of that in the same year. Absolutely no consistency in the numbers at all.

One can source bits and pieces of history from whatever place during a period to attempt to come up with population range for a city during a period, but again, it'll only be an estimate that would likely be pretty sketchy.


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## little universe

*Chang'an* (known as *Xi'an* today) reached the population of 1 million around about 700 AD according to Wikipedia. It was the largest city in the World from 600 AD to 900 AD.

And it was the Eastern Terminal of the *Silk Road* at that time.


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## hkskyline

Here's a list from the University of Washington website. Wikipedia can be readily changed by anyone and should not be considered a reliable source. As previously mentioned, population counts are best estimates with lots of limitations.


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## Slartibartfas

Vienna reached the 1 mio mark between 1869 and 1880. I could not find more precise information and I am not sure if it exists. So it happened pretty much at the same time as Manhattan crossing that mark. I don't know which one was actually first and if there is a way to find out for sure.


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## aarhusforever

Rome was first, without any doubt


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## the spliff fairy

There are several different estimates for Rome at its height, some stats say Rome only ever reached 450,000 at its peak, others state it was in 1BC it surpassed the 1 million mark, others in 100AD. *Even if it were true that Rome reached 1 million in 1AD, Alexandria beat it, reaching its peak a century earlier and surpassing the 1 million mark in 100BC.*

Some estimates state that neither Alexandria or Rome ever reached the 1 million mark, and the first million city was either Chang'an (Xian) in 700AD or Baghdad in 900AD.

The largest pre-industrial city in terms of built size, not population, was Angkor at the lowest estimates of 1000 sq km. It was over 6x larger than next on the list, Tikal in Guatemala, that covered 150 sq. km. For comparison Ancient Rome only covered 14 sq km - the biggest argument in why it never reached 1 million, as the densities, given the amount of open space and squares would have equated to an even spread of 100,000 per sq. km, or 3x that of modern day Kolkata, at its worst in 1988.


For more recent times Beijing may have reached 1 million in 1500, and 1600 - if it didn't it definitely had done just before 1800 - the first date that all historians agree on. Other estimates are Angkor 900, Kaifeng 1000, Hangzhou 1200 and 1300, Jinling (Nanjing) 1400, Ayutthaya (Thailand) 1700, Edo (Tokyo) 1720.

The first city over 2 million was London in 1845.

By 1900 London had reached 6.6 million. NYC overtook in 1925 with 7.8 million, and was the first city over 10 million in 1936. First over 20 million was Tokyo in 1968 (it had grown by 5 million in 3 years!), and also the first over 30 million sometime in the noughties.


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## GENIUS LOCI

polako said:


> I don't know if anyone ever posted this before. I found this list in a TOP 10 book from 2000. Here are the first cities to reach 1 million people:
> 
> 1. Rome(Italy)-133 B.C.
> 2. Alexandria(Egypt)-30 B.C.
> 3. Angkor(Cambodia)-900
> 4. Hangzhou(China)-1200
> 5. London(UK)-1810
> 6. Paris(France)-1850
> 7. Beijing(China)-1855
> 8. Guangzhou(China)-1860
> 9. Berlin(Germany)-1870
> 10. Manhattan-1874
> 
> Any surprises?


Alexandria... as far as I know its size never overcome 100k during 'Roman age'
Probably 200k


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## GENIUS LOCI

eddyk said:


> I remember a list that said Babylon was the former biggest city in the world....being the first to reach 200,000 (or something like that)....and this is like 500/600 years ago.


Babylon is matter of 4000 years ago


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## GENIUS LOCI

brooklynprospect said:


> I read somewhere that Tokyo reached 1 million sometime before 1800.
> 
> Actually Japan was fairly developed in the late Edo Period. Just about as developed as it was going to get without an industrial revolution. Perhaps that's one reason why it picked up so quickly on its modernization efforts after Admiral Perry came along.


I read Edo (old name of Tokyo) had 1 mio inhabitants in 1720, but sources are controverisial

I actually don't know but might be the datus of 1 mio is referred not on the old city of Edo alone, but even to the sorrounding area and cities.
Infact the city of Tokyo 'was born' by the merging of Edo and the sorrounding cities.

Then the 1 mio datus in XVIII century maybe is referred to the whole area of current Tokyo prefecture, but not only to Edo.
Just my guess, anyway


Alejandro_MEX said:


> Actually, some of the first cities to reach 1 million people are some of the world's largest cities today. For instance:
> Tenochtitlan (Actual Mexico City)
> Edo (Actual Tokyo)
> 
> Both were the world's largest cities in 1500, like today.


Afaik Tenochtitlan never reached 1 mio people.

When Spanish _conquistadores_ reached 'em in XVI century it had 200k/250k inhabitants. More than any other cities in Europe at the time, but far to be 1 mio.
Later there was a quick decreasing of the population, and just starting from XX century population boomed

That shows there is not a direct link between past and current popultaion of a city, in a long range of time. 

Rome was the first city in history to hit 1 mio target, more than 2000 years ago. But today is not one of the biggest city in the world, by far.
And during the middle age its population decreased to 20.000

Angkor had 1 mio inhabitants in 1200. But today is 'just' a vast area dotted with ruins totally covered by the forest, and populated by few tourists


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## Oaronuviss

Copperknickers said:


> In the history of human civilisation you mean, the earth is a billion years old .
> 
> But you have to remember, Rome was the most important city in the mediterranean: every rich family from throughout the empire sent their children there to be educated, all the administration was done from there, and thousands of people from Italy and various other places moved there. Thousands of slaves were needed to build things. Thousands of merchants and craftsmen moved there to take advantage of the massive riches on offer. Thousands of peasants from Italy moved there to take advantage of the city life (gladiatorial games, chariot racing, free distribution of food, public water fountains, baths, etc), and many children were born from all of this mixing of peoples. There had never been a city comparable to Rome previously, a city like New York or London which drew people into it. Previous to that, most people simply stayed in the same place they were born, but the empire gave the freedom to move around.


I always heard Rome's maximum ancient population was 500,000 which made it by far the largest city on Earth.

London was always told as the first to reach a mill as a result of the Industrial revolution.


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## megacity30

GENIUS LOCI said:


> :?
> 
> According to the first post o this thread it is exactly the contrary (anyway I found those data wrong, as for Rome reaching 1 mio is extimated between I century BC and I century AD)
> 
> Anyway I didn't find any source about Alexandria reaching 1 mio. And honestly I heard something like that the first time in my life in this thread. I always knew Alexandria was the biggest city of Hellenistic age (with hundreds of thousand people) and the second biggest in Roman Empire.
> 
> Something I've found about Alexandria population
> 
> 
> http://archnet.org/library/places/one-place.jsp?place_id=1455&order_by=title&showdescription=1


Although the conservative estimate (especially among European scholars) for the first city is Rome, some other scholars believe the first city was Alexandria. 

Chang'an (Xian) was the next million-city in ancient history, followed by Baghdad.


source: https://faculty.washington.edu/modelski/WcitiesH.htm

references: 
-Abu-Lughod, J. (1989) Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D.1250 -1350
New York: Oxford University Press. 

-Adams, R. McC. (1981) Heartland of Cities, Chicago: Chicago University Press.

-Bairoch, P. (1988) Cities and Economic Development, Chicago: Chicago University Press.

-Braudel, F. (1984) Civilization and Capitalism 15th to 18th Century;Volume 3: The Perspective of the

World, London: Collins; Parts 2 and 3: The City-centered Economies of the European Past.

-Chandler, T. (1987) Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth: An Historical Census, Lewiston: St. Gavid’s.

-Childe, G.V. (1950) “The Urban Revolution”, Town Planning Review, 21(1),3-17.

-Hourani, A. (1991) A History of the Arab Peoples, Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
Part II: Arab-Muslim Societies.
and S.M. Stern eds. (1970) The Islamic City, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

-Kenoyer, J. (1998) Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, Karachi: Oxford University Press.

-King, P.L and P. Taylor eds. (1995) World Cities in a World-System, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. 

-Modelski, G. (2000) “World System Evolution” at pp.24-53 of R. Denamark, R., J. Friedman, B. Gills, and G. Modelski eds. World System History: The Social Science of Long-term Change,
New York: Routledge.
----- (2003) World Cities: -3000 to 2000, Washington: Faros 2000. 
----- and W. R. Thompson (2002) “Evolutionary Pulsations in the World System” at pp.177-196 of S. C. Chew and J.D. Knotterus eds. Structure, Culture, and History: Recent Issues in Social Theory, Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.

-Mumford, Lewis (1938,1970) The Culture of Cities, New York: Harcourt Brace.

-Nichols, D. and Y.H. Charlton eds. (1997) The Archaeology of City-States, Washington: Smithonian.

-Toynbee, A. ed. (1967) Cities of Destiny, New York: McGraw Hill.

-Tilly, Ch. and W.P. Blockmans eds. (1994) Cities and the Rise of States in EuropeA.D.1000 to 1800, 
Boulder: Westview Press.

-Webster, D. (2002) The Fall of the Ancient Maya, New York: Thames and Hudson.

-Wheatley, P. (1971) The Pivot of the Four Quarters: A Preliminary Inquiry into the Origins and the Character of the Ancient Chinese City, Chicago: Aldine.


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## megacity30

Oaronuviss said:


> I always heard Rome's maximum ancient population was 500,000 which made it by far the largest city on Earth.
> 
> London was always told as the first to reach a mill as a result of the Industrial revolution.


No, several cities such as Alexandria, Rome, Chang'an (Xian), Baghdad etc crossed the one-million mark many centuries before London did.

London reached the 1-million-people mark around 1800.

However, London was the first metropolis; i.e. the first city to cross the 5-million-people mark in the 19th Century.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19th_century_London


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## the spliff fairy

GENIUS LOCI said:


> :?
> 
> According to the first post o this thread it is exactly the contrary (anyway I found those data wrong, as for Rome reaching 1 mio is extimated between I century BC and I century AD)
> 
> Anyway I didn't find any source about Alexandria reaching 1 mio. And honestly I heard something like that the first time in my life in this thread. I always knew Alexandria was the biggest city of Hellenistic age (with hundreds of thousand people) and the second biggest in Roman Empire.
> 
> Something I've found about Alexandria population
> 
> 
> http://archnet.org/library/places/one-place.jsp?place_id=1455&order_by=title&showdescription=1


The figure is given by Polish historian, George Modelski in 2003 (winner of the Bronze Kondratieff medal) that Alexandria in 100 BC reached 1 million. It's population went into decline after that, a hundred years later Rome took pre-eminence.


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## ralam

*Interesting discussion, wrong question*

Interesting discussion on cities that grew to 1m. However, I think the right question isn't being asked. The question is how come it took cities so long to cross the 1m mark. What didn't other cities grow larger than 1m between, say, ancient Rome and London in the 1800s?

I've been reading Steven Solomon's book Water, and his thesis offers a possible explanation: clean water.

Ancient cities that grew to and beyond 1m people were not industrialised like London was in the 1800s. The reasons ancient Rome could support such a population was because its aqueducts could provide clean water to residents. Industrializing London grew because of the jobs it offered, but it had no clean water. There were two cholera epidemics in England in the early 1800s, wiping out thousands. Cities like London - before the introduction of sewerage - were squalid at best.

It wasn't until Europe went through a sanitary revolution (underground sewarage, discoveries in medicine that could thwart water-bourne disease), that its cities could grow.

In 1800, 2.5% of the world's population lived in cities. By 2008, over 50% of the world's population lives in cities.

Cities could never have grown this way unless they could provide clean drinking water and sanitation to people.


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## Wapper

It's amazing that it was possible to feed so many townsmen before modern agriculture and before the industrial revolution. I imagine that the huge Roman empire was able to have one enormous metropolis thanks to the well organized state, the modern road network, trade on the Mediterrannean Sea, grain from the Nile delta and slave labour. 

I assume the even bigger and also very well organized Chinese Empire was able to sustain an enormous metropolis as well in ancient times. 

Those were exceptions however. Agriculture was very unproductive for today's standards, which means that a large majority of the population had to produce food and only a very small amount of privileged people was free to do other activities.


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## chornedsnorkack

megacity30 said:


> No, several cities such as Alexandria, Rome, Chang'an (Xian), Baghdad etc crossed the one-million mark many centuries before London did.
> 
> London reached the 1-million-people mark around 1800.
> 
> However, London was the first metropolis; i.e. the first city to cross the 5-million-people mark in the 19th Century.


More significantly, London in 1840s was the first city ever to cross 2 millions.



> I assume the even bigger and also very well organized Chinese Empire was able to sustain an enormous metropolis as well in ancient times.


Able? Yes. Willing?

That varied.

In late 18th century, it is fairly certain that Japan had population of 25...30 millions.

And Tokyo, reliably at 1,3...1,4 million people, was the largest city in the world.

Qing China had over 300 million people by late 18th century. Over 10 times the population of Japan.

Beijing had population of 800 000. And was the largest city of China then.

Probably not even the largest city of the history of China. The population of Xian, Kaifeng and Hangzhou may (or may not) have been bigger.

I am not sure whether Alexandria or Baghdad did cross one million mark.


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## alexandru.mircea

Didn't Constantinople also reach one million, in late antiquity / middle ages?


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## Nibiru1977

Great Post! *: )*
I would like to update this awesome discussion by adding that new recent studies seem to re-confirm that in the year _320 AD_, at the very peak of the city's urban development, Rome reached the record of 2,000,000 inhabitants. This fact, although already accepted by the vast majority of historians worldwide, is being supported by new accurate investigations which legitimizes the same data.
It is notable that an amount of 2,000,000 inhabitants would automatically make_ III century A.D. ancient Rome_ bigger than every American city of today with the exception of _four_:_ New York, LA, Chicago,_ and _Houston._ And we are talking about 1700 years ago.
We must also underline that it took no less that _1,523 years_ (over 15 centuries) for another city to reach that same stratospheric amount of population. Indeed, the first city to report _2,000,000_ registered inhabitants was the city of _London_ in the year _1843_ (during the industrial revolution).

Here is a good article with a very well-done video embedded in it:
https://www.vox.com/2016/2/28/11129238/rome-reborn-video

Also, a curios parenthesis on the age of the city.
We all know that the year *753 B.C.* is the 'mythological' (for lack of a better word) founding of Rome and not the 'realistic' one. That year is strictly related to the legend of Romolo and Remo, the two brothers who, after being adopted and nurtured by a she-wolf, founded the city of the seven hills.
Recent - and very accurate - studies have, again, re-confirmed what many historians have argued during the last 100 years or so; that the very beginning of the city of Rome dates to the year 1,000 B.C. at the very least. The recent restoration of _the Mamertine Prison in Rome_, with an altar commemorating the imprisonment of St. Peter and St. Paul, has led to excavations which re-emerged several utensils that had been preserved in the deeper archaeological sub-layer underneath the prison. It did not take long for historians to date these objects to a time that precedes the legendary date of 753 of about 250 years. And since this fact has definitely elongated Rome's life and longevity, many are the archeologists who push the birth of the Caput Mundi to an even earlier time. This is mainly due to the overwhelming amount of archeological finds proving a very intense human activity in and around the vast area that is today's Roman Forum.
From these many finds to the already famous Lapis Niger, it seems that the origin of ancient Rome are to be attributed to around the year 1,200 BC, the very time in which Mycenae started to fall from the great position of power it held during the bronze age.
The chances of Rome being about 3,217 years old have very much found the approval of the international _historic-scientific and archaeological_l organizations, schools, societies, foundations and elite.


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## Copperknickers

eddyk said:


> I remember a list that said Babylon was the former biggest city in the world....being the first to reach 200,000 (or something like that)....and this is like 500/600 years ago.


Well considering Babylon ceased to exist about 2000 years ago, I think your source was ill-informed to say the least. Or maybe you're just misremembering. Or perhaps you mean Baghdad? 



Oaronuviss said:


> I heard London was the first.
> The cities before that barely had that many people in their entire countries.
> It's doubtful that Rome had 1 million at such a young time in earth's history.
> I'm not arguing this as fact, as I'm not sure...it just seems rather odd.


It's easy to get that impression if you are not familiar with ancient history, but for your reference:

The Roman Empire existed, in very simplified terms, around 2000 years ago. That is actually extremely recent, in the grand scheme of things. For instance, modern humans have been around on planet earth for something like 250,000 years (or maybe 50,000 for what we call 'gracile **** sapiens', i.e. totally 100% modern humans who had complex language and art and so forth). 

The invention of agriculture began, very roughly, 10,000 years ago, and recorded history begins around 5000 years ago with the invention of writing, by which time there were finally large settlements that can be called cities, measuring in the thousands rather than dozens or hundreds. 

And so the Romans only came onto the scene two thirds of the way through recorded history from our perspective. They acknowledged the fact that they were latecomers to civilisation, and they viewed the ancient Egyptians in the same way we view the Romans, as a mysterious ancient civilisation (in fact, the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza was further in the past for the Romans than the building of the Colosseum is from the present day). 

The difference in population of the world between Ancient Egyptian times* and Roman times is quite staggering. In Ancient Egyptian times we believe the world had somewhere up to 70 million inhabitants, in total, on all continents. By Roman times that goes up to around 250 million. That's an increase of nearly fourfold. 

We estimate that the Roman Empire at its height had a population something similar to the United Kingdom today, which is to say around 60 million. And so when you put it like that, it doesn't seem surprising that Rome had a million people. In fact you'd expect there to have been several cities with over a million, except for the fact that health was so bad and society was so heavily rural and agrarian in those times. 

*Ancient Egyptian civilisation lasted for something like 3000 years, in fact it arguably overlapped with the Roman period, but I'm talking about the famous period when the well-known monuments were being built. 



jezahx said:


> no, london was not the first. by the end of roman history the entire empire had about four million people residing in it. and not to be mean but 'such a young time in earths history' i think you mean human history whitch still makes it an inaccurate claim. and i promise its not odd haha.:cheers:


Nah. Italy alone probably had 4 million people.


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## GeromeD

Küsel said:


> In the 3rd century Rome could have reached 3 mio, during Julius Caesar it was already 1.5 mio.
> 
> Anyone knows how big Ur, Uruk and Babylon were?


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_throughout_history

I have found these stats in wikipedia. Nobody can be sure whether are accurate or not but are indicative for the three cities mentioned in different phases. As you will see there are three researchers that dont always agree on ther estimations :bash:
http://phenq-it.com/


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## Copperknickers

GeromeD said:


> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_throughout_history
> 
> I have found these stats in wikipedia. Nobody can be sure whether are accurate or not but are indicative for the three cities mentioned in different phases. As you will see there are three researchers that dont always agree on ther estimations :bash:
> http://phenq-it.com/


This is something that's not been mentioned enough in this thread: it's impossible to calculate exactly how many people lived in an ancient city, and so all numbers are just estimates, which can vary wildly. Ancient sources are not very good guides, because they frequently exaggerate numbers wildly and sometimes just make them up. To my knowledge there are no ancient censuses that survive, and even if they had, census data at that time was unlikely to have been remotely reliable. 

So we mainly rely on archaeology to estimate how many people lived in a city. Which is quite difficult, especially as concerns cities which are still inhabited today, as we can't just dig up Rome and do a full archaeological survey: a lot of our archaeological data mainly comes from brief windows when archaeologists are allowed to examine the foundations of building sites when a new building is being built. We have quite good archaeological remains when it comes to central areas like the forum, but the poor areas of Rome were most people lived are buried under many meters of medieval and modern buildings and so we know very little about them. 

We can use things like aqueducts to give us an idea of how populated a city was, for instance archaeology and epigraphy shows us that the aqueducts in Constantinople were built in the 5th century in order to facilitate a growing population, then they fell into disrepair indicating population decrease after the great plagues and wars of the 6th and 7th centuries, then they were repaired a few centuries later indicating renewed demand i.e. growth. And we can estimate roughly what kind of number we're talking about in terms of number of inhabitants by the amount of water the aqueducts could have supplied (although that is immensely difficult when you consider a lot of water was used for ornamental fountains and some may have been siphoned off by farmers, and a lot of water went straight to the baths rather than being drunk).

So yeah, the general rule in ancient sources is divide all numbers by 10, then by another 10 if they still don't look right. And so older modern scholars will often follow this rule. Whereas the most recent studies take into account actual physical evidence a lot more, and they are starting to discover that a lot of the exaggerations (though by no means all) are not nearly as exaggerated as they seemed. A lot of it stemmed from pride: 19th century scholars didn't want to believe that ancient Rome was in some ways a more advanced society than Napoleonic Europe, as they didn't have many cities which reached one or even two million and so refused to believe the Romans did. But the evidence certainly seems to show that Rome even by modern standards would be considered quite a big city in European terms.


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