1950 AD
|
12,463,000
|
New York
|
8,860,000
|
London
|
7,000,000
|
Tokyo
|
5,900,000
|
Paris
|
5,406,000
|
Shanghai
|
5,100,000
|
Moscow
|
5,000,000
|
Buenos Aires
|
4,906,000
|
Chicago
|
4,900,000
|
Ruhr Area
|
4,800,000
|
Kolkata
|
|
|
1500 AD
|
672,000
|
Beijing
|
500,000
|
Vijayanagar
|
400,000
|
Cairo
|
250,000
|
Hangzhou
|
250,000
|
Tabriz
|
200,000
|
Constantinople
|
200,000
|
Gaur
|
185,000
|
Paris
|
150,000
|
Guangzhou
|
147,000
|
Nanjing
|
|
1900 AD
|
6,480,000
|
London
|
4,242,000
|
New York
|
3,330,000
|
Paris
|
2,707,000
|
Berlin
|
1,717,000
|
Chicago
|
1,698,000
|
Vienna
|
1,497,000
|
Tokyo
|
1,439,000
|
St. Petersburg
|
1,435,000
|
Manchester
|
1,418,000
|
Philadelphia
|
|
|
1000 AD
|
450,000
|
Cordova
|
400,000
|
Kaifeng
|
300,000
|
Constantinople
|
200,000
|
Angkor
|
175,000
|
Kyoto
|
135,000
|
Cairo
|
125,000
|
Baghdad
|
125,000
|
Nishapur
|
110,000
|
Al-Hasa
|
100,000
|
Patan
|
|
1800 AD
|
1,100,000
|
Beijing
|
861,000
|
London
|
800,000
|
Guangzhou
|
685,000
|
Edo
|
570,000
|
Constantinople
|
547,000
|
Paris
|
430,000
|
Naples
|
387,000
|
Hangzhou
|
383,000
|
Osaka
|
377,000
|
Kyoto
|
|
|
100 AD
|
450,000
|
Rome
|
420,000
|
Luoyang
|
250,000
|
Seleucia
|
250,000
|
Alexandria
|
150,000
|
Antioch
|
130,000
|
Anuradhapura
|
120,000
|
Peshawar
|
100,000
|
Carthage
|
95,000
|
Suzhou
|
90,000
|
Smyrna
|
|
I added as extra type-ins the modern name and other aliases for the city, not that it will help many people get it. Fairly obscure.
Anuradhapura: 1%
Patan: 0%
I don't know why, I just find it weird (or interesting [or both]) how the ones that are harder to spell have a percentage higher than Patan.
for the top, missed alot of silly ones, ones I thought I had already typed, or ones I did think of but went, well if A and B is not on it, C propbably isnt either.
5 of the 4 I missed there I could/should have gotten (philadelphia being the one I missed but hadnt thought of)TL;DR I would expect more Indian cities here, esp for the earlier years. Do you have any explanation for their absence? For example, has India just been much more rural than China for most of its history? Are there a lot of large cities that just barely missed out? Have population records from India not been as common/reliable? If you have an answer, I'd love to hear!
1. Western Civilization (Mesopotamia/the Near & Middle East/Europe/North Africa)
2. Eastern Civilization (China, Japan, IndoChina)
3. Indus Valley civilizations (India, Bangladesh, Pakistan)
4. The New World (the Americas)
Then... (1) (2) (3) (4)
100 AD 7 - 2 - 1 - 0
1000 AD 6 - 3 - 1 - 0
1500 AD 4 - 4 - 2 - 0
1800 AD 4 - 6 - 0 - 0
1900 AD 6 - 1 - 0 - 3
1950 AD 4 - 2 - 1 - 3
For a more in depth analysis of these trends I'd recommend the book Why the West Rules... For Now by Ian Morris. Good read. Lots of charts and figures.
As far as I know, the Indus River Valley Civilization was independent, but I've also learned that it collapsed suddenly and inexplicably, and India had no major civilizations for hundreds of years, which may have set them back.
I'm also not sure, but it's possible that these time points just don't happen to capture India at the height of advancement. For example, the "Biggest Cities in History" quiz has Patna as the largest city in the world, and the dates line up with the Maurya Empire, which was very sophisticated... but that was between 300 and 195 BC, so not on this quiz. Also, jumping from 100 to 1000 AD leaves out a lot of history, including the Gupta Empire, which was arguably as advanced as China/the West (perhaps more so, since Rome was collapsing at this point).
And you're right that Vijayanagar is pretty impressive. Thanks for the in-depth answer!
There are probably other factors as well, but I think all of these points are pretty good guesses for why there are comparatively few Indian cities. And, of course, many of the largest cities today are in South Asia, so there's that.
Or... the people indigenous to the Indus River valley may have developed these technologies themselves. It's hard to say as the evidence for any early prehistoric civilization is usually pretty sparse.
Edifying
Peshawar, in addition to being very ancient, and one of the oldest continually-inhabited places on Earth, remains the 6th-largest city in Pakistan, being home to some 2 million people.
Patan was the medieval capital of the Indian Chavda and Chalukya dynasties, and, though fairly small by contemporary Indian standards, is still a city in Gujarat today.
Vijayanagar was capital of the Vijayanagara Empire. Not much remains of it apart from the ruins of Hampi in the state of Karnataka, in Southern India.
The ruined city of Gaur is today known as Gauḍa, though it has gone by other names, too, and is located near the border between India and Bangladesh.
Kolkata... I assume you've heard of? Still one of the biggest cities in India today, with an urban area home to over 14 million people. It used to be Romanized as Calcutta.