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Can you show me those maps showing dozens of cities with 1 million plus population prior to 1800? Wikipedia's list of largest cities throughout history [1] is p
by benbreen 10y ago
Can you show me those maps showing dozens of cities with 1 million plus population prior to 1800? Wikipedia's list of largest cities throughout history [1] is pretty well-sourced and while there are a handful of 1 million+ (Rome, Baghdad, Istanbul, Beijing, Ayutthaya) before the Industrial Revolution, they reach that population asynchronously and don't number in the dozens, even by the most optimistic estimates.
Based on what I've read, most of North America was indeed relatively sparsely populated relative to, say, early modern Japan or China, but Mesoamerica and the Andes were comparable to early modern Europe in terms of population density and urbanization. For example, by the time of first contact with Cortes in 1519, Tenochtitlan had a population of 200k to 300k, which was roughly three times larger than the estimated population of London at the same time, as well as bigger than any city in Spain or any of the other Hapsburg lands (which is something that the Spanish themselves noted).
Charles Mann's 1491 is a really good read on this general topic by the way, for anyone interested in reading more.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_throughout_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_through...
- aaron-lebo 10y agohttp://worldpopulationhistory.org/map/1800/mercator/1/0/25/ http://worldpopulationhistory.org/map/1800/mercator/1/0/25/ It's apparently not cities with 1 million people, it's population centers of 1 million.