> the city of Antioch had a population density of about 190 people/acre (~500,000 souls, with a diameter of ~4 miles); by comparison, modern day NYC has a popul

> the city of Antioch had a population density of about 190 people/acre (~500,000 souls, with a diameter of ~4 miles); by comparison, modern day NYC has a population density of around 100 people/acre. Manhattan has a density of 72,000 people per square mile. If it were its own city, that would make it the 6th densest city in the world[0]. The top three are Manila and Mumbai, at 108,000, 74,000, and 74,000 people per square mile, respectively. So, regardless of levels of development, modern cities cap out under 80,000 people per square mile, with Manila being a slight outlier (but not by much). 190 people/acre - what you cite for Antioch - is 121,600 people per square mile. I'm not able to find any reputable sources that back that statistic, and estimating populations of cities from antiquity is inherently a bit tricky. 500,000 people would also put it at 50-80% of the population of Rome during the same time period, and more populous that Constantinople, though it's not included in any of the four lists of populations of large cities on this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_throughout_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_through... [0] There are two more, at 108K and 80K, but they both have populations under 70,000, so they're not comparable.