# Map of the metro areas



## WonderlandPark (Sep 9, 2007)

citypopulation.de is the best source for information, not perfect, but closest to reality. I am a planning major, I am sort of getting sick of people underestimating city metro sizes. citypopulation is very close to the UN estimates, the Chinese govt. estimates, Japanese info estimates and many other standards used in the real world everyday.


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## Chrissib (Feb 9, 2008)

WonderlandPark said:


> citypopulation.de is the best source for information, not perfect, but closest to reality. I am a planning major, I am sort of getting sick of people underestimating city metro sizes. citypopulation is very close to the UN estimates, the Chinese govt. estimates, Japanese info estimates and many other standards used in the real world everyday.


Yes, but sometimes, even the UN-Estimates are not accurate, eg. for Germany and South Korea they used the city-proper figures. E.g the metro area of Berlin has 4.5 million inh., but on the un-paper, 3.4 is written.


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## Huhu (Jun 5, 2004)

Chrissib said:


> The problem is that I haven't found accurate data for China. The whole thing for China (except Shanghai, Tianjin, Peking and Hongkong) is based on estimates of citypopulation.de on the world agglomeration map.


The problem for China is that Citypopulation uses census numbers from 2000, or eight year old statistics. In China, as much changes in eight years as does in a generation elsewhere.


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## tk780 (Jun 21, 2007)

WonderlandPark said:


> citypopulation.de is the best source for information, not perfect, but closest to reality. I am a planning major, I am sort of getting sick of people underestimating city metro sizes. citypopulation is very close to the UN estimates, the Chinese govt. estimates, Japanese info estimates and many other standards used in the real world everyday.


This website compares American _Combined Statistical Areas_ to _urban areas_ in other parts of the world (some of which are grossly underestimated). Apples and oranges.
CSAs consist of multiple metropolitan areas and are thus two levels above urban areas. Not to mention that even the US Urban Area definitions are less rigid than the ones applied to non-US cities in their list.


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## hudkina (Oct 28, 2003)

If you are to use a more "international" approach to defining U.S. cities, than I would say these are the American cities that have more than 2 million:

_1. New York - 18 million_ - (estimated)
2. Los Angeles - 13.6 million - 2,300 sq. mi.
3. Chicago - 7.3 million - 1,600 sq. mi.
4. Miami - 4.9 million - 1,200 sq. mi.
5. San Francisco - 4.7 million - 750 sq. mi.
6. Philadelphia - 4.0 million - 1,000 sq. mi.
7. Detroit - 3.7 million - 1,100 sq. mi.
8. Houston - 3.5 million - 1,000 sq. mi.
9. Washingon - 3.4 million - 800 sq. mi.
10. Phoenix - 2.9 million - 800 sq. mi.
11. Atlanta - 2.8 million - 1,200 sq. mi.
12. Dallas - 2.7 million - 800 sq. mi.
13. Boston - 2.6 million - 650 sq. mi.
14. Seattle - 2.6 million - 800 sq. mi.
15. Minneapolis - 2.3 million - 800 sq. mi.

(The numbers are from the year 2000 so they have risen quite a bit since then.)

Also, there are two cities that were just below the 2 million mark in 2000 that have more than likely passed it since then. Tampa 1.9 million (700 sq. mi.) and Denver 1.9 million (500 sq. mi.)

It should also be noted that many of these cities (especially Boston) have smaller, nearby satellite cities that are heavily influenced by the central city that would almost certainly be considered part of the metropolitan area.


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## smokiboy (Aug 30, 2007)

Where would Toronto (GTA) fit on this list, before or after Miami?


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## hudkina (Oct 28, 2003)

Statcan makes you pay for their information, so I can't do an exact comparison, but I would guess that in 2001 Toronto would have had a population of 4.6 million in 1,000 sq. mi. which would put it at #6.

I base that on the population of 12 Census Subdivisions (Ajax, Aurora, Brampton, Burlington, Markham, Mississauga, Newmarket, Oakville, Pickering, Richmond, Toronto, Vaughn) with a little bit of wiggle room. For the most part the urbanized area stays within these 12 municipalities.


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## smokiboy (Aug 30, 2007)

I'm really surprised that Miami has about 5 million people, and that Chicago is only about 7.3 mil. I would have thought that greater Chicago has closer to 9 mil. ...


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## monkeyronin (May 18, 2006)

hudkina said:


> Statcan makes you pay for their information, so I can't do an exact comparison, but I would guess that in 2001 Toronto would have had a population of 4.6 million in 1,000 sq. mi. which would put it at #6.
> 
> I base that on the population of 12 Census Subdivisions (Ajax, Aurora, Brampton, Burlington, Markham, Mississauga, Newmarket, Oakville, Pickering, Richmond, Toronto, Vaughn) with a little bit of wiggle room. For the most part the urbanized area stays within these 12 municipalities.


No, plenty of free information on Statscan's website...

As of 2007, Toronto's CMA had 5,509,874 people. No numbers Greater Toronto have been released, however, one forumer calculated it to be just above 6 million. 

No updated numbers have been released for the Statcan defined "urban area" either, which had 4,753,120 as of the 2006 census (and which had the CMA at 5,113,149, or 7.22% below the revised numbers. So adding another 7% to the 4.7 million would give the urban area about 5,096,295 people presently).


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## Xusein (Sep 27, 2005)

tk780 said:


> This website compares American _Combined Statistical Areas_ to _urban areas_ in other parts of the world (some of which are grossly underestimated). Apples and oranges.
> CSAs consist of multiple metropolitan areas and are thus two levels above urban areas.* Not to mention that even the US Urban Area definitions are less rigid than the ones applied to non-US cities in their list*.


Some are, some aren't. Although it's CSA is huge and generous, the New York metropolitan area technically doesn't include most of it's suburbs. Long Island and Northern NJ are in their own.


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## hudkina (Oct 28, 2003)

monkeyronin said:


> No, plenty of free information on Statscan's website...
> 
> As of 2007, Toronto's CMA had 5,509,874 people. No numbers Greater Toronto have been released, however, one forumer calculated it to be just above 6 million.
> 
> No updated numbers have been released for the Statcan defined "urban area" either, which had 4,753,120 as of the 2006 census (and which had the CMA at 5,113,149, or 7.22% below the revised numbers. So adding another 7% to the 4.7 million would give the urban area about 5,096,295 people presently).


I know that there is free data, I was referring to the Statcan equivalent to the Block Group. Statcan doesn't offer that information unless you pay for it. The numbers for the U.S. data is contiguous block groups that are integrated with the central core, excluding outlying satellite cities. (i.e. Oshawa and Hamilton are satellite cities.) In 2001, Toronto had about 4.5 million people living in such a designated area, based only on the fact that that is the population of the 12 census subdivisions that contain the majority of the "block group"-equivalent census divisions.


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## monkeyronin (May 18, 2006)

Sounds to me like the equivalent of Statcan's urban areas, which consist of adjacent census tracts of a certain minimum density, in which case Toronto had the above-mentioned 4,753,120 people in 2006 (4.3 million in 2001), or my updated estimate of ~5 million, spread over 1,749 sqkm.


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## chicagogeorge (Nov 30, 2004)

smokiboy said:


> I'm really surprised that Miami has about 5 million people, and that Chicago is only about 7.3 mil. I would have thought that greater Chicago has closer to 9 mil. ...


If we use the two American definitions of a metropolitan areas, the Metropolitan Statistical Area, and the larger Combined Statistical Areas, then as of 2006, Chicago has an estimated:

MSA: 9.5 million 
CSA: 9.8 million 

And according to Demographia Chicago as defined as an urban agglomeration (or world standard urban area), in 2007 it has 9.1 million
http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua2015.pdf


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## hudkina (Oct 28, 2003)

There are several satellite cities that are adjacent to Chicago that aren't included with this number including Joliet, Aurora, Elgin, Round Lake, etc. Chicago has a much larger sphere of influence beyond its urban area, whereas Miami's influence ends when its urban area ends. In other words, Chicago serves a much larger population than 7.3 million while Miami basically only serves the 5 million people between the Atlantic and the Everglades.


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## smokiboy (Aug 30, 2007)

Just as I thought, Greater Chicago is about twice the size of Greater Toronto. I wonder though, does that mean that Chicago has twice the amount of highways, subway kilometres, parks per capita, murder rate, etc


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## monkeyronin (May 18, 2006)

smokiboy said:


> Just as I thought, Greater Chicago is about twice the size of Greater Toronto.


9.5 vs. 6 = 158% :dunno:

Also: for what reason would a city twice the size of another have things like murder rates and parks per capita at twice the rate? I'm not following that logic...


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## TU 'cane (Dec 9, 2007)

hudkina said:


> If you are to use a more "international" approach to defining U.S. cities, than I would say these are the American cities that have more than 2 million:
> 
> _1. New York - 18 million_ - (estimated)
> 2. Los Angeles - 13.6 million - 2,300 sq. mi.
> ...


I would hope those are from 2000.. Dallas is up past 6 million, Seattle is up to 3.3 million.... just to name a couple


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## hudkina (Oct 28, 2003)

That's for American CSAs, I was giving examples of a more international approach, using a stricter definition of "metropolitan area". In the case of Dallas, the "metro" is split between Dallas and Fort Worth. The Dallas portion has 2.7 million in 800 sq. mi. while the Fort Worth portion has 1.5 million in 500 sq. mi. The remaining population is spread among adjacent satellite cities (Denton, McKinney, etc.) and the surrounding rural and exurban area.


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## Tubeman (Sep 12, 2002)

Nice map, but the thread content is a recipe for disaster


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