Printed Page 611-554-0(cont.)

America’s History: Printed Page 611

America: A Concise History: Printed Page 554

Chapter Timeline

AMERICA COMPARED

The World’s Biggest Cities, 1800–2000

This table lists the ten largest cities in the world, by population in millions, at the start of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries.

Table 19.1: TABLE 19.1
1800
City Population
Beijing, China 1.10 million
London, United Kingdom 0.86
Guangzhou, China 0.80
Istanbul, Turkey 0.57
Paris, France 0.55
Hangzhou, China 0.50
Edo (later Tokyo), Japan 0.49
Naples (later part of Italy) 0.43
Suzhou, China 0.39
Osaka, Japan 0.38
1900
City Population
London, United Kingdom 6.48 million
New York, United States 4.24
Paris, France 3.33
Berlin, Germany 2.42
Chicago, United States 1.72
Vienna, Austria 1.66
Tokyo, Japan 1.50
St. Petersburg, Russia 1.44
Philadelphia, United States 1.42
Manchester, United Kingdom 1.26
2000
City Population
Tokyo, Japan 34.45 million
Mexico City, Mexico 18.02
New York City/Newark, United States 17.85
São Paulo, Brazil 17.10
Mumbai (Bombay), India 16.09
Delhi, India 15.73
Shanghai, China 13.22
Calcutta, India 13.06
Buenos Aires, Argentina 11.85
Los Angeles, United States 11.81

QUESTIONS FOR ANALYSIS

  1. Question

    In each year, how many of the world’s ten largest cities were located in the United States? In what regions of the world were the other cities located? What does this tell us about the United States’s role in the world at each of these historical moments?

  2. Question

    The figures from 1900 and 2000 show, to a large degree, the effects of industrialization. What does the table suggest about its impact?