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Cities Redirect‑class

This redirect is within the scope of WikiProject Cities, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of cities, towns and various other settlements on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CitiesWikipedia:WikiProject CitiesTemplate:WikiProject CitiesWikiProject Cities Redirect This redirect does not require a rating on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale.

Wuhan

The population of Wuhan (city proper) is just around 4.5 million, the population of Wuhan municipality with area of 8,494.41 km2 is around 8 million . In size of population Wuhan is just ranked 7 among the most populous cities (city proper) of China , after Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Shenyang and Chongqing. So that this article ranks Wuhan (city proper) 14 in the list wholly incorrect.

Something is still wrong with the Wuhan numbers all the way around. Most notably, the area given (400 square kilometers) simply can't be correct. The smaller urban area measure of Wuhan yields an area of 1,557 km2, so there is absolutely no way that if you measure it by districts to get "city proper" that the area measurement could be smaller than 1,557 km2. These measurements of Chinese cities are just getting plain silly. --Criticalthinker (talk) 03:51, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the area of Wuhan. It does seem way off. Perhaps a new source to replace Wuhan? Elockid ·_Contribs) 13:11, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Unless there is other more believable source, Wuhan should temporarily be gotten out of the List of cities proper by population.--Tutino (talk) 09:19, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this would be for the best. What someone needs to find is the inner-most districts that could be designated a "city proper" (i.e. those districts that cover the urbanized area), and then include the city on the list. This is what we've done for every other Chinese city since their municipal boundaries are so huge. --Criticalthinker (talk) 10:22, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Moscow

The Moscow page lists density as 11454.9, but this page lists it much lower. I tried to change it, but it was reverted. 206.169.65.43 (talk) 17:45, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

85.91.128.82 (talk) 07:47, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Paris

I'm shocked. Is Paris too small to be in the chart? :) 85.91.128.82 (talk) 07:47, 8 May 2009 (UTC)yavor

Paris is actually smaller than you might think. There is quite a large suburban area around it, but Paris itself is considerably smaller and less populous than, say, London. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.107.183.201 (talk) 00:14, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

City Proper

For this article the criteria should be simple. City proper refers to the city in question and the boundries which are defined and the city has legal authority over. This would exclude suburbs because they are urban and near central cities but the city governments have no legal authority over them

Ask yourself, do those areas vote for the city mayor or councilmen. If not they are not part of the city proper. If areas have their own police or fire protection or have to pay a central city for their use they are not part of the city proper —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.26.106.62 (talk) 05:35, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Dehli Inquiry

Does the Dehli population and area figure include the independent city of New Dehli, as well? BTW, I'm working on finding the official 2001 Census numbers for India's administrative divisons. I've been able to find Mumbai's, but need to sign-up at India's statistics site to find the rest, so don't change anything concerning the Indian cities for the moment. --Criticalthinker (talk) 01:52, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

To be absolutely clear, the National Capital Territory of Delhi, which is equivalent to a province or state holds 3 separately governed municipalities: Municipal Corporation of Delhi (Delhi), New Delhi Municipal Council (New Dehli), and Delhi Cantonment Board (Delhi Cantonment). This page should ONLY include the population of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi which is Delhi City. So, please make sure that is the case. --Criticalthinker (talk) 00:29, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

If you'd like to use the 2001 census populations for Indian cities (municipal corporations), these are the correct figures:

• Mumbai: 11,914,398
• Delhi: 9,817,439
• Kolkata: 4,580,544
• Bangalore: 4,292,223
• Chennai: 4,216,268
• Ahmedabad: 3,515,361
• Hyderabad: 3,449,878

You yourself say that you want to make sure that the Delhi figure doesn't include the entire union territory. The Delhi agglomeration is 12,791,458 while the Delhi NCT is 13,850,507 (these are 2001 census figures).

And just so you're aware, there are also provisional 2001 census figures still floating around. The provisional figures are 13,782,976 (NCT); 12,877,420 (UA); and 9,879,172 (MC).

Why didn't you give your signature? You've provided no source for your numbers, and I got mine directly from the Indian 2001 Census. It clearly shows that Delhi Cantonment and New Dehli make up a very small part of the overall population of the National Capital Territory. We really must stop using random World Gazetter numbers when we have official information from the statistic bureau of these countries. --Criticalthinker (talk) 03:07, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Anyone? The 2001 Census clearly shows that the Delhi Municipal Corporation (the "city") governed +13 million person as of, with New Delhi and Delhi Cantonnment, the only other two municipal governments of the territory only taking up a few hundred thousand persons. The 11 million number must only be for the urbanized population, but the administrative area that is Delhi had over 13 million persons as of 2001. --Criticalthinker (talk) 02:11, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

No, it doesn't. The DMC is 9.82 million. The Delhi UA is 12.88 million. The Delhi UT is 13.85 million. The UT contains areas outside the three municipal corporations known as Census Towns (CT). The 11 million figure used by World Gazetteer is a projection for 2008 of the 9.8 million 2001 census figure. --Polaron | Talk 03:11, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Do you have a map showing this? From everything I understood, those three municipal councils covered the entire area of the National Capital Territoy (Union Territory). --Criticalthinker (talk) 03:23, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

The Delhi NCT is divided in nine districts, further divided in so-called tehsils. The tehsils are divided in smaller urban or rural units, in this case one municipal corporation (Delhi), one municipal council (New Delhi), one cantonment (Delhi Cantonment), several census towns, and many rural villages. Delhi and New Delhi have parts in more than one district. Detailed files can be found here. Anyway, the area for the Delhi Municipal Corporation in this list is not correct, as 1,483 sq.km is for the whole NCT. I don't think the area for the Municipal Corporation is more than 650 sq.km, at most. For some additional details, see my comments on Delhis urban agglomeration here. --Pjred (talk) 00:03, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Chongqing: Biggest City in the World

I've added China's three other municipal cities to the list, since they are specially-administered city-provinces, but I can't bring myself to add Chongqing. I kind of have to add if if we're to be consistent, but its borders just seem far too large. It is both the largest municipality in area and population. But, this page is, after all, not to measure urban population or even metropolitan population, but simply the population within the confines of a council government. Opinions? Just for reference, Chongqing has an area of 82,300 km² and a population of 31,442,300 (as of 2006). The land area for the municipality is larger than many small nations, but I guess that really shouldn't matter. --Criticalthinker (talk) 22:59, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

It should matter, because it's fairly clear that the Chinese word which is translated as "city" means something rather different than what we normally mean by the term. What about "Prefecture level cities"? Aren't those just as clearly cities as Chongqing? Chongqing isn't a city in any of the normally understood senses of the term, and I don't think it should be included here. john k (talk) 23:41, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it's unclear why only the province-level cities are included with an arbitrary exception. The list is now missing the prefecture-level cities that are large enough to make it on the list (Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Wuhan, Shenyang, Dongguan, Chengdu, Xian, Nanjing, Guiyang, Haerbin). If we're going to stick to areas with a defined government as the criterion for inclusion, I would prefer to exclude the Chinese cities as their city propers (as usually defined, they are a statistical group of urban districts) do not have an associated government. Ultimately, I think the list should be of "city propers" in the traditional sense rather than municipalities, even if those areas do not have an associated single municipal government. --Polaron | Talk 23:53, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm torn because, then, what is the use of a list for the worlds largest urban areas, then? At the same time, it doesn't seem right to list "cities" the physical size of small nations. I guess, then, it's best that we leave out ALL Chinese cities from this list, then. For instance, Hong Kong should also be removed because very little of its 1,092 square kilometers is developed land. If you'd like to remove them, I guess I don't mind. But, to me, a "city" is simply a municipal government, regardless of how little or how much non-urban area it contains. Not the whole of London, for example, is urbanized. --Criticalthinker (talk) 23:59, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

How are we to distinguish a municipal government from any other kind of local government? For instance, what about the various "chartered counties" in Maryland, whose function roughly corresponds to that of a municipal government? Several of them (Baltimore County and Howard County) don't even have any chartered municipalities within them. Why do they not count? The whole conception of this list seems flawed. I tend to think that, given that different countries are organized so differently, we should really just have a list of urban areas, which can be defined in a uniform way, and avoid the pitfalls of this list, which is bound to lead to constant arguing. john k (talk) 00:28, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I do not agree that this list doesn't make sense. As different as countries administrate there area, there is such thing as "local government" or municipal-level government in just about every country. As for chartered counties, what does that have to do with anything? Baltimore is both a municipality and a county. This page is for both traditional and non-traditional local governments. No one would argue Baltimore is any less a local government because it's also a county. --Criticalthinker (talk) 00:51, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

The City of Baltimore is an independent city, not part of any county. There's also Baltimore County, which is separate, does not include the city of Baltimore, and functions very much like a municipal government. It does not contain within it any chartered municipalities, but has more or less full local self-government. Why isn't it a "city" in the sense of Chongqing? It isn't called a city, and it isn't as densely populated as a traditional city, but in terms of government, it's not too different from one. What about British council districts? "Local government" does not at all correspond to what we generally think of when we use the word "city." Sometimes the local government roughly corresponds to the urban area, sometimes it is much smaller, sometimes it is much larger, and sometimes there are several levels of local government which make it extremely complicated to say. But defining "city" to mean "unit of municipal government" strikes me as dubious, especially if it forces us to do things like include Chongqing. john k (talk) 01:28, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I think the point of this list is basically to show density of people, there should be a slider = area. You slide the area and the list changes to say the maximum number of people in that area...hmmm... should it be a circle? This all boils down to the problem with trying to define things! Oh... the human desire to know!

Solution for this Page: How to Define "City"

As we all know, defining "city" by the definitions of a "city proper" is usually quite easy. But, there are a few cases where it is more difficult (Chinese cities). I propose that we keep those traditional and easy-to-define city propers that exist on the list, but for those less easy to define that we define them as the local government officially defines them. For instance, Tokyo's "23 Wards" should represent Tokyo, here. As long as these local governments exists as administrative areas we should be able to piece together the population of say a Shanghai or Beijing without having to add thousands of square kilometers of empty rural space. Still, in this case, cities like Santiago still wouldn't belong, here, and it would be hard to make a case for Lagos. But this new definition of "city" would allow quite a few more cities to be added. Opinion? --Criticalthinker (talk) 23:36, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

The 23 wards is simply the area that used to be Tokyo municipality before it was dissolved. It is now simply a statistical area. How is that different from the 16 LGAs making up Lagos or the 32 municipalities making up Santiago. Inclusion of Tokyo necessitates inclusion of these two (as well as the Chinese cities). Let's not make arbitrary decisions here. How about we just find some respectable entity that has already tabulated administrative cities rather than debate what gets included or not. There is no single definition that would satisfy everyone. --Polaron | Talk 00:09, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

If you're talking about World Gazetter of the UN than I would not agree, at all. The people that know their cities best, and know the best ways to define them, are the national or local statistics organizations. Anything else is too much of a guess to be taken seriously, even if it is consistent. I'd rather see this page be inconsistent and exact, than consistent and far from exact. --Criticalthinker (talk) 01:19, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Hong Kong Definition

Hong Kong, from what I understand, has no formally-defined cities. The administrative divisions within Hong Kong are more like boroughs than indepedent cities, so Hong Kong should be added. --Criticalthinker (talk) 23:43, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

China cities vs. US cities

In any case, the city proper of a China city is much more conservative than a US city, probably except for Chongqing. The city proper of a US city includes so many suburbs that I don't even consider any city in the US except for New York City a city, compared to cities in China. You find skyscrapers everywhere in a city proper of China, yet for any US city except New York (probably except Chicago too, but not any other), there are at most 10 blocks of downtown area, and then there are one-story residential houses. The contrast is very obvious. Hardly any intermediate buildings exist. A mid-sized China city might not have many super-talls, but if you look at the skyview of any such city, it is very dense and urbanized with tons of 8--9 storied buildings. If you think the city proper of a China city doesn't have an associated government, then the only equivalent of that part in a US city should be the downtown area. How big a population does downtown Los Angeles have? The definition of Chongqing might not be very proper, but that doesn't harm other really big Chinese cities like Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, etc. I would say, even the definition of Chongqing is probably more proper than a city like Chicago. Chicago's skyline can be seen from miles and miles not because it is so much higher than other cities, but because the rest is so flat. I don't think I have to say anything about Los Angeles. Anybody who has been there knows it is just a giant village.

If you decide to remove all Chinese cities from the list, but include cities from anywhere else, please make the title "List of cities by population except China". I do believe that China doesn't have to compare with the rest of the world in terms of city sizes. China has 1.4 billion people and most of them live in big cities of the east coast. You can imagine how dense and urbanized those cities can be.

Whoever wrote the above paragraph got it totally wrong. The city proper means EXACTLY that, the city limits which the city government has jurisdiction over. Very few cities in the USA are over 500 sq miles. A metropolitan area or a consolidate metropolitan area refers to a city and it's suburbs.

If you don't know what you're saying don't say it. And whoever wrote the above paragraph didn't have a clue 63.26.106.62 (talk) 05:32, 21 September 2008 (UTC)eric

SYDNEY

there's like 4mil people in sydney, therefore it qualifies, yes? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.216.91.186 (talk) 09:27, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

See directly below. Aucitypops (talk) 15:37, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Sydney is reported as having over 4 million people, yet it's not on the list - http://en.wikipedia.org/Sydney —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.163.71.197 (talk) 21:48, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi, this list only includes "city proper" or municipality population for better or worse, an equivalent figure for Sydney would be the popn of the City of Sydney, i.e. only ~154,000 people. - Aucitypops (talk) 05:48, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes well London made it in as "Greater London" "Greater Sydney" is 4 million, put it on the list. this list is very inaccurate.

There's no such thing as "Greater Sydney". Aucitypops (talk) 06:27, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I sujest you research "The County of Cumberland" the city of Sydney is entirely enclosed within this county, as are its 4 million residence, Sydney has a place on the list!

Nope. Substantial parts of that 4 mil. figure dwell outside Cumberland County (whose border is the Hawkesbury/Nepean River), e.g. on the Central Coast and in the mountains. And the Cumberland County hasn't had anything resembling a government since the 1950s. This list is limited to municipalities. There's no Greater Sydney municipality. - Aucitypops (talk) 03:13, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Where are you from, Are you from Sydney? If you were you would know that the area classified as Greater Sydney does not include the central coast, the hawksbury, the blue mountains or wollongong. When you enter city, from all these places, you pass a sign, "Welcome to Greater Sydney, pop. 4 something million". The number 4 million included the CBD itself and its surounding suburbs, as in London, and London is on the list?

Yes, I live in Sydney. There is no official "Greater Sydney" that population figures are published for, so there's no figure which can be compared with the other entities on this list. The only official statistical entity covering the whole of Sydney is the Australian Bureau of Statistics' Sydney Statistical Division, which includes the Central Coast and Hawkesbury, the Blue Mountains and Wollondilly Shire (but not Wollongong). If there are signs at the Hawkesbury River crossing saying that 4 million people live south of there then they're wrong, I'm afraid, and a sign that even the authorities have trouble understanding their own definitions. - Aucitypops (talk) 04:47, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

OHHHH, GET BACK!, THIS MANS ON FIRE!

Many there be who come! from fear set free,

From anger, from desire; keeping their hearts

Fixed upon me- my Faithful- purified

By sacred flame of Knowledge.

-Aucitypops (talk) 05:12, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

The sacred flame of knowledge, I got one of those!

Should be at "List of cities proper" or "List of municipalities" by population

Like I mentioned in the deletion discussion, I think this article should be at one of the above for clarity, and "List of cities" should direct to the generic definitions page, World's largest cities. Any opinions? = Aucitypops (talk) 04:01, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

No objections then? I think "List of cities proper by population" will be best. - Aucitypops (talk) 05:56, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

moved. - Aucitypops (talk) 09:34, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Shanghai population

The World Gazetteer population for Shanghai in 2008, 15,584,627, seems to be a much more accurate figure than the current one of 10,030,788. The current figure is from 2003 and is from Statistics Finland, which I don't see why that source has any authority at all. According to World Gazetteer the official census population of Shanghai in 2000 was 12,693,027, so that is already more than the 2003 Statistics Finland figure. And these are strictly for Shanghai city proper, not for the municipality. World Gazetteer has population figures for the whole municipality as well, 16,407,734 at the 2000 census and 18,398,009 for a 2008 estimate. Most of Shanghai's population is centered in a small area. Puxi is the central nine districts of Shanghai and is only 289.44 km². The Misplaced Pages article on Puxi says approximately 90% of Shanghai's population is located in Puxi. I don't know how accurate that is but that would be a population of 16,558,208 using the 18,398,009 figure, so the population of 15,584,627 seems very reasonable. I'm not sure what the area should be though so I am going to delete that figure. LonelyMarble (talk) 20:20, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

World Gazetteer figure is incorrect for Shanghai. The "agglomeration" figure is for the municipality while the "city" figure is for the total of all urban districts. In both cases, the figures include floating population. Also, the growth rate being used (+2.60%) is inconsistent with recent trends (Shanghai-shi has a -0.12% growth rate of permanent population for the past decade). Please check other sources to see if anyone else corroborates the World Gazetteer figures. See here for an official by distict population breakdown of permanent residents (the city proper is everything from the top row to Jiading District). The official city proper population is about 10.24 million. If we include the non-resident population, this goes up to 13.46 million. --Polaron | Talk 21:35, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

World Gazetteer lists three figures for Shanghai:

• Shanghai "city, town or place" - 15,584,627
• Shanghai "agglomeration" - 16,969,826
• Shanghai "shih" - 18,398,009 I'm assuming that's the same thing as the province-level municipality because the population figure coincides with the figure from this source.

So it doesn't seem like World Gazetteer is mixing up city, agglomeration, and municipality, it is just using a different definition of the city perhaps. Also from what I read it seems like the -0.12% growth rate is just the natural birth rate, but that doesn't indicate what the actual growth rate of the city is because people from other cities are moving to it all the time. Also, perhaps we should include "long-term residents" as well, this source from the "Shanghai Population and Family Planning Commission" seems to include long-term residents as it gives the population of the municipality at 18.45 million. Where did you get the 13.46 population that includes non-permanent residents on that page? I see the 10.24 but not the 13.46. One reason I felt the 10 million figure was so off was because I was comparing it to 18 million in the municipality. But if you compare 10 to 13 and 13 to 18 it makes more sense. I think perhaps we should change the population to 13.46 to include long-term residents as well, I would think most city populations include this, and since many cities' population figures are from World Gazetteer it would be consistent to include long-term for Shanghai too. LonelyMarble (talk) 22:47, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

The Shanghai Statistical Yearbook has estimates of the total population including the floating poopulation as of the end of 2006. --Polaron | Talk 23:16, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

So, what defines the 'city proper' of Shanghai then? My vote is on the Puxi area. The first version of this publication listed the Puxi area as one single unit, Shanghai Shi, at the 2000 population census. The other statistics from the World Gazetteer is very hard to evaluate, as they don't give more details about their own sources. What I think of using the World Gazetteer as a source can be viewed here, by the way. --Pjred (talk) 20:46, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

To the editors on this page, if you cite a source or reference for this article, such as the World Gazetteer, then you need to correctly use the source's statistics to reflect the article's content. Misplaced Pages is not for original research and we should not insert statistics that "we" think "actually" reflect the city proper's population! We ought to use the number that is "stated" on the reference and definitely shouldn not play "adding" or "mix and match" statistics (and again, that is original research) a whole bunch of numbers to fix up a statistics. You need to correctly attribute the source's statistics.--Balthazarduju (talk) 20:49, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

After checking the article's citation and the way it's been attributing them, I've concluded that this has to be one of the worst and most inconsistent articles ever written on Misplaced Pages. It is ridiculous how inconsistent it really is. For example, for Shanghai, it cites a Finnish source instead of the World Gazetteer (which is the most cited source on this article), and the Finnish source shows a population of 10,030,788 for Shanghai...Okay... Then look another example, Mumbai, whose population according to the same Finnish source is 11,978,450, but on this article, some editor is citating the World Gazetteer's statistic of 13,662,885....Okay... I guess this is what I'm talking about of "mix and match" statistics to satisfy different editor's opinion.--Balthazarduju (talk) 23:24, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree. There is a big discrepancy between the data provided here and on the Shanghai proper wiki article. Here the population is 13,831,900, while in this article it is 21,884,600, relating to this article accordingly. Whatever the criteria are, I think both should match. I suppose the same problem relates to other population counts. As a person who wanted to check the data out of curiosity, I do not find it as a big problem, but if somebody was looking for the information for a specific reason, it would lead them to a total confusion at best and make wikipedia a poorly reliable source. So if you know specific criteria, please correct it. // User: Random wikipedia user(talk) 03:26, 15 October 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.243.150.173 (talk)

Istanbul

The population figures for Istanbul are for the province of Istanbul, not the city. Turkey is divided into 81 provinces which share the name of the capital. The capital is usually the largest city (with a couple of exceptions in which another city has passed the original capital in size).

So the number here ~11,3 million, includes places outside urban areas since it counts people who live in the administrative centers of the province (il) as well as people who live in the administrative centers of any district (ilçe - the sub-unit of a province).

Plus the number given in the article is not the same as found on the source website. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xemxi (talk • contribs) 08:10, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

The population figure for Istanbul in the list is the total population of all the 27 districts within Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesi), not the whole province. Nor is the 11,3 million the total population of all the district centers within the province. Read the article for Istanbul for details.

Anyway, here's an overview of some population figures of Istanbul (2007-12-31): 10,757,327 (total population of all 27 district centers within Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality); 11,174,257 (total population of all district centers within Istanbul Province, also the ones outside the metropolitan municipality), 11,372,613 (total population of the 27 districts of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, which is basically the same as the city of Istanbul), 12,573,836 (total population of Istanbul Province).--Pjred (talk) 14:04, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Mumbai Image Caption

Made an edit to the text underneath the mumbai pic at the top of the page. Technically Mumbai does not have A downtown area, so the image is not downtown mumbai, but a nevertheless important locality in mumbai- Cuffe Parade.

Irutavias (talk) 22:24, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Why 47?

Used to be titled: Why 30?

Couldn't we expand this list to, ideally list all cities of over 1,000,000? Also, I think it's a good idea to foot note exactly how we are defining each city. john k 07:15, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there's any particular reason for there being 30. World Gazetteer lists cities with population of 500,000+. If we go with 1 million+ cities, there would be about 310 entries. If we go with 2 million+ cities, there would be about 120 entries. Currently, entries without footnotes correspond to the concept of "city proper" or "administrative area". Polaron 14:32, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

It's now 47.... If the article's going to go with a flat number, then say so—"List of top ___ cities proper by population"— or just mention it in the opening para. If something else, same deal, be it by cities with 3 million+ or by whatever. The way I wrote that feels condescending...sorry for that.... --Snaxe/fow (talk)

The list is completely wrong. London's population is over 10 million, it was nearing 11 million when I was living there myself some years back (2001-2002). Billy Bollox (talk) 11:54, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

But thats the metropolitan area, where exactly are you're figures from. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.159.30.178 (talk) 08:46, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Ho Chi Minh City

The population for Ho Chi Minh City is way off. The city is actually a city-province with 2,095 square kilometers and 6,117,251 as of the 2004 Census. But, even if you only include the inner districts it's still 494 sq km with 5,140,412 as of the 2004 Census. Someone needs to correct this. All of the info I provided is on the city's wiki page and is highly detailed. The 4 million number looks like it may simply be an urban agglomeration, and not anything having to do with administrative divisions. --Criticalthinker (talk) 00:37, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Ok, then we have to decide which definition is the 'city proper'. The municipality, or the central urban districts? The obvious choice would perhaps be the municipality, but because the administrative system is similar to the one in China, with a few provincial units classified as municipalities governed (mainly) by the state (Ho Chi Minh City is one of them) it's perhaps not as easy as that. And, the newly expanded boundaries for Hanoi shows that the development perhaps is beginning to follow what's happened in China, with the municipalities expanding far beyond what's a fair definition of its urban core. As in China, Vietnam defines more urbanized districts within the municipalities, so perhaps the best choice is to use that definition after all? Comments?--Pjred (talk) 10:12, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Chinese city propers

Oh dear... It's almost as I don't dare to start this discussion, but I feel it has to be done. My simple question is: what definition shall we use for city propers in China?

The provincial, subprovincial and prefectural levels are out of the question, as I see it. They are basically not independent enough to be called administrative cities by their owns. The provincial municipalities are mainly governed by the state, and the subprovincial and prefectural municipalities are very much administrated by their provincial governments. Well, they have some local administration, and I think they have something that can be called 'mayors', but I think it's more about taking and proceeding orders from higher authorities and not so much about local administration. And, then of course, they are far too oversized to be usable in a comparision with other worldwide cities.

The main source for Chinese cities in this list is a Finnish database. From what I can see, they have basically summarized the fully urban districts for each city, and excluded any surrounding district that has any level of rural population. The results gives fully urban areas, but the problem is that they are not administrative areas by their own. Instead, they consists of several smaller administrative areas (qu's=districts). However, we have already Lagos and Santiago in this list, each consisting of severeal smaller administrative units.

Another approach is to use the so-called 'shixiaqu' level, which is a collective term for all urban-classified districts within a provincial/subprovincial/prefectural municipality. However, not all of the districts (far from, actually) are fully urban, and I think that in some rare cases even with some distance from the central block of districts, with rural counties separating them, making it not a continuous area. What speaks for the shixiaqu level is that it is classified at county-level, and that the defined 'shixiaqu' districts have an important role in urban planning in China.

Thoughts, anyone?--Pjred (talk) 22:44, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd actually argued this one before, and we were unable to come to a concensus, so I just gave up. I'd say the best way is just to list the population of what they consider their own city propers, and thats listed on most of these city's pages, already. --Criticalthinker (talk) 05:54, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Chongqing is considered a city proper, and it's huge (40,000,000 people). If need be we can create a separate list for municipalities, which covers whatever is administratively the city. For this list, using Chinese definitions of city proper looks plain old ridiculous. I think core districts + inner suburbs is a good measurement for this, but it's hard to find recent figures for it (unless you can read Chinese). Speaking of Chinese, I wonder if zh. might have some population figures for districts within cities that can be copied over to this site by translation means.

I've also decided to revert Shanghai back to its former figure. The World Gazetteer just doesn't work there. Someone the Person (talk) 20:21, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Populations of Tokyo and México City

The population of México City and Tokyo are much larger than stated in this page. México City has a population of around 25 million people and Tokyo about 23 million people. I do not understand why Mumbai has been listed as the largest. It is a well known fact that the populations of Tokyo and México City are abouve 25 million.

Thankyou for taking this into consideration —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mspence835 (talk • contribs) 20:58, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Lima Update

The 43-district Lima Province (which is a special province run like a regional municipality) has a population of 8,445,211 as of 2007. Someone may want to update this. Here is the source courtesy of the INEI, the national statistics agency of Peru. --Criticalthinker (talk) 04:28, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

The 8.4 million figure is for Lima Department. The figure for Lima Province is only 7,605,742 (see Table 4.2 of the pdf file). --Polaron | Talk 04:48, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Oops! Thanks. I see what I did wrong. But, this still means you need to correct the number, here, to match the official Census data. --Criticalthinker (talk) 07:20, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Outdated information for Shanghai

I noticed that the data for Shanghai is quite outdated - from 2002. For a city growing as fast as it is, it may have several million more people since then. Is it worthwhile to flag this article with a template? Or if someone has better information, could they please try to search out better numbers for Shanghai? Thanks. -Legaia (talk) 15:52, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

If the World Gazetteer is right, Shanghai is larger than Mumbai, India now. However, I doubt that the World Gazetteer is using the definition of "core districts + inner suburbs." Someone the Person (talk) 21:55, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

The crux of the problem is that we are not in agreement on what constitutes a city proper. Looking at the Wiki article for this term, it does not mention anything about "core districts + inner suburbs". There has not been a general consensus that concurs with your criteria. Is it by your command that this page only lists population for core districts + inner suburbs? By78 (talk) 23:18, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Very much the truth per the last comment. It's a bit more than odd to see Shanghai, first, but it being the only major city in the top ten without an area or density listed. Unless we can find better info, we need to switch it back to like it was before. --Criticalthinker (talk) 08:02, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I've reverted it back; the World Gazetteer gives what appears to me to be a meaningless number (what area does it cover?) and whatever definition we use for Shanghai should be used for all Chinese cities. The way I see it we have two options: 1. Count the entire area of Shanghai and other Chinese cities, including rural areas. I don't like the idea of this, because if we use that definition for city proper, then Chongqing should be at the top of the list by a long shot. 2. Use more strict figures, but figures that apply to a defined area. Core districts + inner suburbs is a defined area. The World Gazetteer doesn't say what area its figures apply to. Someone the Person (talk) 20:31, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

We should avoid World Gazetteer if possible. The list uses World Gazetteer as a source only when the definition is clear, i.e. the most recent census figure for the World Gazetteer entity matches the most recent census figure for the municipality exactly, and also when there are no other sources available for a relatively recent population estimate. This is the case for municipalities in India. In China, this is not applicable and I can't be sure what definition it is using. In any case, the list should be reverted to the status quo pending a clarification of how to define Chinese cities proper. --Polaron | Talk 21:46, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Bringing the number issue back

The list currently ends at Busan, South Korea. This appears to me to be a very random place to stop, neither a round population number nor a round number of cities. There should be a defined limit to the list, say, cities with 3,000,000+ people. This makes it easier to know when to add to or remove from the list.

I don't think it should be a "top x" list, because it's hard to accurately keep track of which x cities to include, and every time one city is added, one will be removed. Someone the Person (talk) 19:26, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

3 million is probably a reasonable cut-off point. --Polaron | Talk 04:02, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Someone the Person (talk) 11:56, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

This is the list of administrative city definitions that have a recent (>2005) population estimate of over 3 million and are not currently included in the article. The list may not be exhaustive so please feel free to add anything that's missing as long as it fits the "city proper" definition. --Polaron | Talk 19:46, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

• Nairobi — 3,038,553 (2008) --Anatoliy (Talk) 15:32, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Thanks Someone the Person (talk) 21:11, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
• Buenos Aires (ADDED)
• Madrid (ADDED)
• Omdurman
• Pyongyang (ADDED)
• Berlin (ADDED)
• Pune (ADDED)
• Cape Town
• Durban (ADDED)
• Sydney
• Melbourne
• Casablanca -- 2,933,509 as of 2004 (is there a more recent estimate?)
• Jeddah 2,860,000 (2005) --Anatoliy (Talk) 15:32, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Then it should not be on the list. The article gives a >3,000,000 number but no source. Someone the Person (talk) 21:06, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
• Kanpur (ADDED)
• Jaipur (ADDED)
• Lucknow (maybe?)
• Luanda
• Maracaibo

Someone the Person (talk) 22:03, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Sydney and Melbourne should definitely be removed as these are urban areas. There was a previous discussion on this somewhere above or in the archives. Maracaibo only has 1.3 million; Luanda has 1.7 million; and Lucknow has 2.7 million. Omdurman is unclear. --Polaron | Talk 22:28, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with the argument that Sydney and Melbourne are urban areas -- this would mean that Sydney is counted as having a population of 168,682, and Melboune 71,380. On a list, especially a list of the largest cities in Australia, this looks kind of ridiculous -- Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth would go far at the top. I think the "Greater Sydney" and "Greater Melbourne" definitions are okay, because they still don't include large suburbs like e.g. Wollongong.

This list is supposed to be a list of cities by population, not a list of municipalities. If the goal was to make the definitions strictly administrative, Chongqing would be at the top of the list. This list is supposed to measure all cities with roughly the same standards. If there is a question about the purpose of this list, maybe we should create two separate lists -- one for cities proper (to "look right"), and one for municipalities (strictly administrative definitions). Someone the Person (talk) 21:25, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't have strong feelings either way but just be prepared to argue about it as this issue has come up a few times before. --Polaron | Talk 21:55, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Omdurman has 3,151,561 according this source.--Anatoliy (Talk) 15:35, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

So let's add them. Someone the Person (talk) 14:33, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think they should be added. Like it or not the 'city propers' of most Australian cities ARE very small, and not comparable at all to the very large municipal entities displayed in this list. - Aucitypops (talk) 18:54, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I still don't think it makes sense to call the municipalities "city proper." If someone were to ask the question "What is the largest city in Australia," most people would answer "Sydney" or "Melbourne." This list is not a list of municipalities; if it was then Chongqing would be by far the largest. Lagos, which is on the list, is made up of LGAs as well. Someone the Person (talk) 21:02, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Chongqing "Proper"

Now, we've already come to the concensus that adding Chongqing as a Chinese municipality is not feasible, but even the number listed here for the "core districts" seem to be wrong. According to the List of administrative divisions of Chongqing, Chongqing "proper" or its core districts had a population of 5,780,000 as of the 2006 estimates. Shouldn't this be corrected? --Criticalthinker (talk) 04:21, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think this should be corrected, and I will change it. Most of the Chinese city numbers are based on Statistics Finland; I think we should not use it when there are more well-defined numbers available. Statistics Finland does not define the extent of its "city proper" definition. The main problem is that Misplaced Pages is lacking in district population figures for the administrative divisions of all but the very largest cities in China, and many of the sources that could be used are in Chinese. Someone the Person (talk) 15:22, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

London

Firstly the population listed here is wildly inaccurate and secondly the city of London is 1 mile square and has a population of around 7000 - seeing as this is "cities proper" and all... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.149.97.114 (talk) 23:54, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Greater London is covered by a common council, so it's treated as a city proper. It's just that simple, my nameless friend. --Criticalthinker (talk) 04:56, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I'm not the guy who wrote that above statement but fully agree with him. The population of the city proper of London is around 7,000 last time I checked. You cannot (even though you have) just interpret something as a proper city that is not. It negates the validity of the entire article. Just because an area has one council doesn't make it a city. This article is flawed and London should not be in it. It's just that simple.--Tubsuk (talk) 23:29, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Forgot to mention, the City of London is unique in not having a 'proper' council. The other boroughs of greater London have separate councils, each of them separate from one another. The Greater London Council is a devolved government to greater London. If London is in here then so too should be Scotland.--Tubsuk (talk) 23:36, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

And Scotland is Greater what? Someone the Person (talk) 23:43, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

London is not the only city in the list that is a special case. For all intents and purposes, Greater London is classified as a city proper. That some services are devolved doesn't change that. There isn't any debate on this. This was decided long ago. --Criticalthinker (talk) 23:45, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok, then it's just a wrong article. If London isn't the only exception and there are further inaccuracies, perhaps the article should just be deleted.--Tubsuk (talk) 23:07, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

We've had this debate here before. What constitutes a 'city proper' has been debated more times than I can remember as the term is subjective, but we've cobbled together a pretty legitimate list. Greater London as a city proper has long since been decided. If that bothers you, too bad. --Criticalthinker (talk) 04:12, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

So basically, you've got together and discussed the issue and your best solution you could come up with was to say 'never mind, we'll just have a factually inaccurate article'. You don't get to decide what is and isn't fact, this article is flawed and does provides false information and what a city proper is, is what each individual country governs to be a 'city proper'. In the UK it is the area with city status. Greater London does not have city status. However, the city of London does and with its population of around 7,000 it shouldn't be in the list. --Tubsuk (talk) 20:25, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

There's the proof that you seem to overlook.--Tubsuk (talk) 20:52, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Stop being a dick. I know what is an isn't a city in the United Kingdom. That has little bearing on our calculation of the subjective term we use ("city proper"). Go argue with someone else. I'm done. --Criticalthinker (talk) 05:02, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Tusbuk: You are confining your definition of "city" to mean a single municipality granted a certain legal status by a higher authority. The list uses the more general notion of city as an urban locality that is generally known by one name. This is not strictly a list of single-tier local authorities. A well-defined statistical grouping of munipalities that are known by one name and is primarily urban would also qualify as a city proper. It may be that the term "city proper" is not the best to use for what are essentially administrative city limits but do you agree that when one generally uses "London" without any qualifications, they mean the entity known as Greater London and possibly its environs? --Polaron | Talk 13:48, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I was under the impression that Greater London was a ceremonial county, as opposed to a city. Despite there being one overall governing body there is also borough wide local council etc just as there is in every other borough of England. The City of London (the area with a population of 7000) is the official city; everywhere outside of the ancient city walls (the other 8 million or so) are suburbs within the County of Greater London. County is the key word. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.143.234.143 (talk) 10:19, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

We should avoid succumbing to the temptation of pedantry when colloquial language is perfectly meaningful and comprehensible. In this case, Greater London is commonly referred to as a city both within and without the UK, and the vast majority of people understand it as such. The kind of person who would quibble about the fact that "you actually mean the "County of London" as the City of London is only one square mile" (tuts, gives a smug look, taps their pipe) is the kind of pub quiz expert that infuriates everyone else outside of that context, and we really shouldn't be catering exclusively for that audience. 222.70.34.41 (talk) 09:42, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Saying that London has 7,000 people is ridiculous, and if that area with 7,000 people is what you call London, then you can hardly say it's the biggest city in the UK. Someone the Person (talk) 21:51, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I would like to make an extension

"A well-defined statistical grouping of munipalities that are known by one name and is primarily urban would also qualify as a city proper" -- This also applies to Australian cities, doesn't it? That's why I want Sydney and Melbourne on the list. Someone the Person (talk) 19:00, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

It actually would, and it's why I'm not sure I agree with that interpretation, either. I support Greater London as a 'city proper' on the list, because it has a regional government. London has two tiers of local government. Australian cities don't have regional government. --Criticalthinker (talk) 01:51, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Nor do the LGAs of Metropolitan Lagos. Someone the Person (talk) 23:02, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

You're right. I did extensive online research about Lagos, and it really shouldn't be on the list, either. Regardless, London should stand; there is no longer any real debate about that. --Criticalthinker (talk) 02:24, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but this isn't a list of municipalities. This is a list of cities. If a person answers the question "what is the largest city in Australia" with "Sydney," is that ridiculous because Brisbane is actually six times larger than Sydney? Why does Australia have Sydney as the largest city in the infobox? It doesn't say "largest metropolitan area." The reason is that there is a difference between a city proper and a municipality. This is a list of cities proper. Someone the Person (talk) 20:19, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

The Randstad region in The Netherlands would also count as a "well-defined statistical grouping of municipalities that are known by one name and is primarily urban", even though it comprises a.o. the proper cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht, and stretches over four provinces. On the other hand, it is relatively compact, especially when considered against e.g. Chongqing, and it does have 41% of the 16 million Dutch living there, so in size it would qualify. The definition is available at the Dutch Statistics Bureau's site http://www.cbs.nl/en-GB/menu/methoden/toelichtingen/alfabet/r/randstad-region.htm , with some statistics at http://www.cbs.nl/en-GB/menu/themas/macro-economie/publicaties/artikelen/archief/2008/2008-2443-wm.htm?Languageswitch=on . 131.174.142.233 (talk) 09:34, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, they are known by one name, but so what? Who would call the Randstad region a city? For that matter, Long Island is a group of municipalities known by one name and is primarily urban. Someone the Person (talk) 13:25, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Kiev, Ukraine

What about Kiev? This list ends at #62 Colombo at 2,235,000 while Kiev has 2,819,566 and is one of the largest cities in Europe according to http://en.wikipedia.org/Europe —Preceding unsigned comment added by DiscoverYellow (talk • contribs) 10:42, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

The list doesn't have Colombo... Someone the Person (talk) 19:30, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Inconsistent with the reference

Seems like this list is outdated. The reference mentioned shows Shanghai to be the biggest city. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to edit the entire list, may be some one can help? Cribananda (talk) 06:17, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

World Gazetteer is generally not a reliable source. It is only being used for the cities of India for two reasons: (1) its figures for the 1991 and 2001 censuses match those of Census India, so we can be sure its definition matches the official one; and (2) there are no recent population estimates for cities by Census India. Otherwise, the definitions used by World Gazetteer in general are unclear or do not match those used by the national census authorities. --Polaron | Talk 12:18, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree it may not be a reliable source, but then the entire list otherwise seems to be based on the World Gazetteer. So not using it for just one city, citing another source doesn't make any sense. Moreover, this makes it inconsistent with the article on Mumbai. Cribananda (talk) 17:15, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

That's a ridiculous exaggeration. A great deal of the cities, especially the top 20, or so, have their own official sources, most, their nation's official statistics agency. To make it sound as if the World Gazetter is the only source being used is ridiciulous. --Criticalthinker (talk) 03:36, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Canvas: should non-Census sources be allowed on individual cite articles?

Because there's a discussion about it here you may want to contribute to if you have feelings about it.--Loodog (talk) 14:04, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Delhi Area

For the zillionth time, the 431.09 for Delhi is for the f'ckin' URBAN AREA not for the municipal boundaries of the Municipal Corporation. We're not going to keep going over this, and I'm going to get this page locked if people keep fucking with it. Hell, the source given, itself, specifies again and again and again that the land area given is for the urban agglomoration. How many times do we have to keep going back over this? This is a page for defined local government districts, either in combination of along, not for census tracts and other statistical divisions.

I'm convinced someone changed my link. Here is another linke giving the area of the three municipal corporations within the national capital territory of Delhi.

There are three local bodies viz., Municipal Corporation of Delhi, New Delhi Municipal Committee and Delhi Cantonment Board whose respective area is 1397.3 sq.km., 42.7 sq.km., and 43 kms.

--Criticalthinker (talk) 00:49, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

No one changed your link to support the 1397 km2. You can even check at history page. With regards to the land area, 431.09 km2 (Urban India)/ 431 km2 (UN) are both extremely similar. So it seems consistent that two reliable sources state this. Urban India makes a reference that the 431.09 km2 is in fact the municipal corporation despite it being the urban area. You can check it here. Delhi Municipal Corp. In the first table it references, Delhi M. corporation as being 431.09 km2. I don't know why there is such a big difference though. Elockid (talk) 01:54, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Also, since the link you provided also had history of a Municipal Act (powers of the government), it is entirely possible that the "bodies" being referenced is the body a government which covers that amount of area and not the city itself. Elockid (talk) 02:03, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

You're just plain wrong. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (which covers a great deal of the area of the Delhi urban area, and most certainly the most central portions of it) covers and area of 1397.3 sq.km. There simply isn't any question about that. The 431 number is just for the urban agglomeration. The municipal boundaries of Delhi are much greater than that. --Criticalthinker (talk) 02:50, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

There seems to be somewhat of a neverending debate about the area of Delhi, as different authoritative sources say different things. I have come to the conclusion that the situation must be like this: The National Capital Territory of Delhi has an area of 1,484 sq.km. Within this area, there are just three incorporated places: Delhi Municipal Corporation (431 sq.km), New Delhi Municipal Council (43 sq.km) and Delhi Cantonment Board (administrated by the army). However, there are several so-called "Census Towns" in the NCT of Delhi that aren't incorporated, and there are also some rural area on top of that. These areas are not part of any of the three incorporated places. But, they are probably administrated from the Delhi MC, similar to a census designated place in the U.S. which is administrated from the seat of the county. So, even as they are administrated from a city, they are not a part of the same. The 1,397 sq.km must be the total area that's administrated from the Delhi MC (including census towns and rural areas) but only 431 sq.km is the Delhi MC itself. Sounds logical? Anyway, for anyone who's interested, Criticalthinker and I had an earlier discussion about Delhi here.--Pjred (talk) 11:49, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

What your saying makes sense. Also from the source that Criticalthinker, it stated that there are "209 villages in Delhi, of which 199 are inhabited villages and the remaining 10 are deserted". It wouldn't make sense that only three bodies (city limits/municipal corporations) exist when the source referenced multiple villages. Elockid (talk) 12:11, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

No, it doesn't make sense. The 431 km is only for the urban agglomeration. That is a given in all of this. A municipality can't administer areas that aren't also included as part of the municipality. DMC covers and area of 1,397 sq km of which 431 sq km is the central urban core. --Criticalthinker (talk) 01:52, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

A village is not necessarily incorporated. Someone the Person (talk) 21:54, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Of course a city or municipality can administrate areas outside its boundaries. Just look at census designated places in the U.S. And, some Russian cities have additional units under their administration, that's not parts of the cities themselves. I am sure there are more examples from around the world, but can't remember them right now. Anyway, in the Statistical Handbook 2008 of the NCT of Delhi, the area 1,397.29 sq.km is listed for "Delhi Municipal Corporation Urban, Rural & Census Towns". Not Delhi MC alone, but bunched together with rural areas and Census Towns. Just another piece of the puzzle.--Pjred (talk) 08:47, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Huh? CDP (Census Designated Places) are unincorporated areas usually overseen by a county; they aren't apart of any municipality. Further more, you're arbitrarily splitting "Rural & Census Towns" from the rest of the title. Why is it so hard to see that Delhi MC administers an area that includes urban and rural lands? It's really rather clear. Census Towns are simple statistical divisions; they are not municipal divisions. Delhi MC has no municipal divisions if even India's Census statistically divides it for statistical purposes. --Criticalthinker (talk) 10:34, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok, cdp's were not a good example, I admit. However, are you seriously meaning that the official name of the municipality is Delhi Municipal Corporation Urban, Rural & Census Towns?? Allow me to at least smile at this... Anyway, I tried some time ago to get in touch with the Delimination Board in India for an answer, but they didn't reply. And, now their webpage is down for some unknown reason. Instead, I have now send a mail to an office in the NCT of Delhi who might be able to help. If I get an answer, whatever it is, I will update here.--Pjred (talk) 11:08, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

More proof the current area listed for Delhi is just the urban area, and not the municipal area:

The MCD, which caters to nearly 96 percent of the land area in the city, is run by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and is currently under the central government.

This was dated just back in September. There is not another source on the entire internet to coroborate the 484 sq km number because that's not the area of the municipality of Delhi. --Criticalthinker (talk) 04:42, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Still, looking at all the pieces of the puzzle, there's something that's not right with this. Why would Census India split the 2001 Census results into one entity named "Municipal Corporation of Delhi" and then also identify other separate urban units ("census towns") with immediate border to this unit (as seen on a map of the agglomeration in this file)? If they were trying to identify a urban part of the municipal corporation, why not count at least all continuous urban units as one entity, if it's within the same administrative unit anyway? This indicates that there has to be some kind of administrative difference between the area listed for the Census results and the surrounding urban units (and rural units for that matter, NCT of Delhi has many rural villages too). Anyway, whatever the "truth" is, the World Gazetteer 2009 population estimate is most likely calculated from the 2001 Census results. And the 2001 Census result, as presented by Census India, is for the 431 sq.km area (excluding New Delhi, Delhi Cantonment, all Census towns and all villages within the NCT of Delhi). If we consider the municipal corporation to be the wider suggestion (just excluding New Delhi and Delhi Cantonment within the NCT of Delhi, but including all census towns and rural villages) we also have to use correct population figures correlating to this area. It would probably be doable for the 2001 Census, but I don't think we can get later official data than that.--Pjred (talk) 00:54, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Now that I'm looking at the map you keep referring to, the title only says its of the urban agglomeration, which they probably piece together by cities instead of physically built up areas, though, it'd not much matter either way. This is important, because looking at the map it clear it doesn't show the borders of the Union Territory. The census towns it shows are actually in other states (outside the boundaries of the Union Territory). --Criticalthinker (talk) 03:25, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

No, all the census towns are within the NCT of Delhi. Here is a document with the definition of the urban agglomeration, with all the components listed. I even think that the Census India have some kind of rule that says that the definition of an "Urban agglomeration" aren't allowed to cross a boundary of a state or a union territory. That's why obvious candidates like Ghaziabad, Faridabad and Noida aren't included in the official urban agglomeration. In reality, the Delhi area is competing with the Mumbai area to be the most populous agglomeration in India; the official population is however somewhat lower.--Pjred (talk) 06:08, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Again, go look at the map you posted, and then go find a map of the union territory (state-equivalent unit). They are not the same. And, please read here what a "census town" is:

"a cluster of fifty or more occupied dwellings, not having a legally defined boundary, in which within a distance of 800 metres there is a nucleus of either thirty occupied houses on both sides of the road or twenty occupied houses on one side of the road."

Take Pooth Kalan as an example. It's a census town, but still very much as an associated municipal government that governs it: The Municipal Corporation of Delhi. The MCD encompasses and administers the government, again, for the vast majority of the territory in the union territory. In other words, these census towns and villages and such are statistical entities, not legal ones. This is essentially a measurement of urban areas, no municipal boundaries. --Criticalthinker (talk) 07:14, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Of course the map of the urban agglomeration and a map of the NCT isn't the same. What's your point?

I am well aware that a census town is a statistical unit, and that the main administrative functions are run by a higher administrative body. It's how census towns all around India are organized - and we don't consider them to be parts of other municipalities, do we? By the way: villages in India are legal bodies (Gram panchayats) and not only statistical units.--Pjred (talk) 09:56, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

The point should be obvious. The 431 sq km number is not the area of the Delhi Municipal Corporation, which is the legal city entity that should be listed on this page as the city proper. Delhi, New Delhi and the cantonnment cover the entire area within the territory, and of that, Delhi's associated government covers over over 95% of the area. Delhi City (municipal corporation), which covers 1,387.3 square kilometers, had a population of 13,423,227 according to the 2001 Census, which are the only reliable numbers for the municipal city. --Criticalthinker (talk) 10:44, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I tried to find a copy of the Delhi Municpal Corporation Act to see exactly what it says. I wasn't successfull. However, I did actually find something useful, and it supports the 1,387.3 sq.km definition for the Municipal Corporation. This recent story tells about a legal procedure about taxes where it was claimed that villages in the NCT were beyond the control of the Municipal Corporation, as they were rural units and not part of the urban area. The court however established that villages in NCT are parts of the Municipal Corporation, based on the DMC Act. So, I'm on board on this. If anyone want to change the smaller definition to this one, I won't oppose it.

However, there's the question on what the most common definition of the "city proper" of the city of Delhi is. I would say that the 13,4 million population figure for the Delhi city proper is practically never used in lists on population of cities. The UN Demographic Yearbook, citypopulation.de, World Gazetteer calculations, various yearbooks and encyclopedias... well, practically every source use the Census India definitions and data. So, I still think it's probably the most useful definition of the "city proper". But, I leave this up to others to debate.--Pjred (talk) 20:43, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

So I think this is what's going on. The Delhi that Criticalthinker is talking about refers to the National Capital Territory of Delhi which is a state or provincial jurisdiction, not the city itself. Within the jurisdiction of the NCT called Delhi NCT, there are municipalities such as New Delhi, towns and villages that Pjred has said and Delhi (urban) which refers to the municipal corporation of Delhi. Delhi is the name of both the municipal corporation and the NCT. The municipal corporation of Delhi lies in the NCT of Delhi which seems to be area that Criticalthinker is talking about. Probably another good example of this problem is looking back at the older revisions of the article. Looking upon the older revisions, I happened to see Manila on the list with about 10 million people. However, Manila is not on the list. This is because we don't use the National Capital Region of Manila as the city itself. Some lists mistake this such as World Gazetteer and use the NCR definition as the actual city definition. I think this is what Criticalthinker is doing, is mixing up the NCT with the municipal corporation. However, within the NCR of Manila, there is a city that's called Manila with it's own boundaries. So I'm thinking that Delhi mirrors this situation. There's an actual city called Delhi which is what the urban definition is or the municipal corporation within a territory that's called Delhi. Elockid ·_Contribs) 03:30, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Nope, I'm talking about the municipal corporation as it existing within the union territory just like everyone else. The union territory is only further subdivided into three other municipalities. --Criticalthinker (talk) 03:34, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Wuhan

How was Wuhan moved up through the ranks? It's page say its inner urban districts only add up to 6 million. --Criticalthinker (talk) 09:57, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Check the source being used for Wuhan, it was updated. Elockid (talk) 15:50, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Mumbai

Data on Mumbai clashes with first paragraph of Mumbai article. JBarta (talk) 14:50, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't see the problem. The Mumbai article says city proper is almost 14 million. This article (which is a list by city proper population) says 13.9 million. The two figures are referenced to the same source as well. --Polaron | Talk 15:33, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I think what JBarta means that the ranking stated for the Mumbai article, clashes with this article. This article shows that Mumbai is the most populous city proper but in the Mumbai article, it is the second most populous. This is partly in dispute with Shanghai and Mumbai. This article uses a different definition for Chinese cities. The urban cores not the provinces themselves like Chongqing are measured instead. This is the reason why Shanghai is not ranked as the largest. From the source though, it does rank Shanghai as the most populous and Mumbai as the second. So if we were going by the source, then it is the second most populous. However, this article has a different ranking system than World gazetteer. Elockid ·_Contribs) 16:52, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The Mumbai article has been edited and the universe is in balance once again (or at least until the next time). JBarta (talk) 03:19, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

World Gazetteer

There are problems with the World Gazetteer source. First off, the only reason that it's being used is that it matches the definitions of that Indian cities. Otherwise, we can't say that it's totally reliable. The cities that are completely wrong are Manila, Buenos Aires, and Dhaka. The figures being listed there, for Manila, the figure of Metro Manila and not the city of Manila is used, for Buenos Aires, the figure listed is for Gran Buenos Aires and the same for Dhaka. Those figures are for the greater metropolitan areas or agglomerations of each of those cities.

Using WG for Shanghai is in conflict with the city of Shanghai's permanent population figure which is the definition being used here. Another link shows that the WG is not correct. We don't even know what definition they're using. Elockid ·_Contribs) 23:40, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

The population of Beijing is wrong.

Dear all, it seems that reference 10 is having different data from what is really written in Chinese: http://www.bjstats.gov.cn/tjnj/2008-tjnj/content/V35_0308.htm

The original explanation of this is: —Preceding unsigned comment added by LunJiang (talk • contribs) 18:04, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics, Beijing Statistical Yearbook 2008, Total number of permanent population (including "floating population") Retrieved on 2009-03-14. Total population on 2007-12-31 (1% sample census) of the two functional areas of 1) Core Districts of Capital Function and 2) Urban Function Extended Districts, including eight fully urban districts. The data is for so-called 'permanent population'; registered population was 7,323,000 the same year.

According to the following link, the number of total population in 2005 is 15.38 million(including floating population), among which the permanent population is 11.807 million at growing rate 3%,long term resident is 3.57 million at growing rate 8%. http://www.bjstats.gov.cn/lhzl/cbtj-2005/200602/t20060205_36921.htm

Permanent resident is defined as people registered at the local government as resident, independent of his current living/working location. Long term residents are those who have been living in the local area more than half a year but have yet not become registered as local citizens. The definition about permanent population and long term residents are explained here. http://www.bjstats.gov.cn/ldcxxt/tjwd/hszs/200508/t20050823_30421.htm

According to the above 2 links, the original reference indeed had an accurate understanding of the total 10,123,000 being the total population including both permanent and long term residents. (long term residents was referred as "floating population"), but the author made a fatal mistake, including only 4 fully urban district instead of 8 fully urban district. The number 10,123,000 was generated by adding the following two numbers together: 1) Core Districts of Capital Function, 2.069 million and 2) Urban Function Extended Districts, 8.054. As explained in the Chinese web page, the "2) Urban Function Extended Districts" only include 4 urban districts. The other 4 urban districts, which are called "Urban New developing Districts" are having another population of 4.462 million. If the original author wanted to include all 8 urban districts, the total population should be 10.123 million + 4.462 million = 14.585 million. In this case it is also highly inappropriate to disregard the "Urban New developing Districts" as non-urban districts. LunJiang (talk) 17:40, 17 December 2009 (UTC)LunJiang

Beijing now has a population of more than 22 million. The demographics chapter has a discussion of the "urban" population. Anybody who lives in Beijing (I do) knows that the city proper expands at an exhilarating pace. The number used here is outdated, the methodology is capricious as LunJiang rightly remarks. BsBsBs (talk) 22:18, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Santiago de Chile

Greater Santiago is an urban agglomeration whit no metropolitan or central goverment. The city extends throughout 37 different comunas (municipalities). The comuna of Santiago has 22 km2 and 182.000 inhabitants spanish wikipedia.

This list refers to cities proper by population. There are already lists of urban areas and urban agglomerations.--Pêyo (talk) 19:35, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Santiago is not unique in this case. Tokyo is also a grouping of municipalities, for example. --Polaron | Talk 01:15, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

What is different is that Santiago has no associated regional government authority, whatsoever, while Tokyo does. This can be said of a lot of cities on this list, also, but I've always been at odds with it, myself. I'm still surprised that there is no list ranking the top associated city governments by population. It blows my mind. I don't see how urban Santiago -- which is arbritrarily constructed and could add new municipalities or lose some -- would be any different than figuring out the population of its urban agglomeration. --Criticalthinker (talk) 03:08, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

The entry for Santiago refers to the province, which is the entity most commonly tabulated in global city statistics. Also, the 23 wards area does not have their own regional government. Tokyo Prefecture included many more municipalities outside the 23 wards. Santiago is probably more similar to London, which is composed of multiple municipalities with a regional government like the provincial government of Santiago. --Polaron | Talk 03:17, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I know that the 23 special wards are an arbitrary greeting. My point was that Tokyo, in fact, does have an actual associated municipal government above it; Santiago doesn't. It's province is not a specially-designated one; it doesn't function -- unlike quite a few regional cities on this list -- as a consolidated/combined city-province. There is nothing remarkable about Santiago Province's function in relation to most other special provinces on this list such as Lima, whose city and province are on some levels governed and combined as both a city and special province. Santiago Province just happens to be more urbanized than most in its country, but as far as their governance is concerned, there is a clear distinction between city and province. --Criticalthinker (talk) 04:21, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

The point is this grouping is often used when tabulating global city statistics. You'd have a very different list if one tabulates true local authorities alone. For the most part, this list uses definitions in the Statistics Finland source. If we were to come up with our own list, how do we ensure we are not going to original research territory. We need to find a reliable published list of cities and see what definitions they use. If you know of one more reliable than the Statistics Finland one, do share it. --Polaron | Talk 04:31, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to chime in whenever these examples are brought up; you should simply get used to it. There is no need for an attitude. The fact is that the list is far form perfect, and the clearly deliniated boundaries of a place like Santiago commune and Santiago province (not to mention that that itself is under the control of a Santiago region) show the error of a list like this. I'm not arguing. There is nothing to argue. The facts are the facts. Santiago province is not considered Santiago's city proper. It's urban agglomeration -- which includes communes in provinces outside of Santiago province -- is about as close to a city proper as you'll get, but it still doesn't make it a city proper in any regard. --Criticalthinker (talk) 06:24, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I know the list is not perfect. That is why I'm asking you if you know of a published global list like this one that is more reliable in terms of the definitions it uses. When we become the ones who decide what is and isn't a city proper, then we're doing original research, and Misplaced Pages is not the proper venue for that. --Polaron | Talk 15:55, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Just wanted to add that the province of Santiago as well as the other chilean provinces are only decentralized bodies of the chilean national government and have no autonomy or self-government. Anyway, the Greater Santiago doesn't cover the whole province of Santiago and also covers part of 3 other provinces. If there are more cases like Santiago, this list should be reviewed thoroughly.--Pêyo (talk) 19:52, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Istanbul Redux

Why don't the population on the city page for Istanbul and this page equal each other? Is it that the population given on the city page actually that of the entire province? The page seems to indicate that the municipality consists of 29 districts, but the page for the Districts of Istanbul seem to indicate that the municipality is actually comprised of 39 districts. Is the 39 districts an urban area definition or the actual municipal definition?--Criticalthinker (talk) 07:36, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Seems to be so. Elockid ·_Contribs) 22:36, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Dhaka

Dhakara's area is given as 304 square kilometers on its page. Which number is more reliable, the one here or the one on that page? --Criticalthinker (talk) 06:50, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

The number here is sourced from a reliable source while the number on the Dhaka article is unsourced. The number here seems to be more reliable then. Elockid ·_Contribs) 22:35, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Harbin

The article for Harbin China lists it population as 4.5m, but it's not on this list —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.201.140.26 (talk) 08:12, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

A fresh proposal

This is getting ridiculous. There will never be an agreement of what is "a city proper." Hence, the list will always be capricious, and data will be wrong.

A lot of numbers about China are from statistics Finland. I like the Finns. But who are they to count the Chinese, if the Chinese have a hard time to keep up with their own numbers? Finland has a population of about 5 million. I could give you places in China you have never heard of that have more people than all of Finland. The last census in China was 2000, and it was abandoned halfway. The next one will be this year, we'll see.

I live in Beijing. Numbers listed here wrong. City proper wrong. My wife is from Tokyo. She laughs about the never-ending discussion about what is Tokyo and what is not. She's from one of the "special wards." And she's definitely from Tokyo.

We should leave it to the people who live there, and who govern the place, where they draw the line. We should not re-define things, because they don't "feel right." Or not fit into our worldview. If Chongqing says it's a municipality, so be it. Who are we to say that they are wrong? If Tokyo insists that islands 1850 km away are part of Tokyo, who are we to contradict them? Trust me, statistically, it won't make much difference.

So there are huge discussions about what is city proper and what not, and then this article uses everything from "city proper" all the way to "Province." There even is a "eThekwini metropolitan municipality." This is embarrassing mayhem.

Here is my proposal: We create a new list "List of the world's largest cities as per Misplaced Pages." Only allowed entry: What is in the info box of the city. The people who maintain these "city" pages usually have it right. Peer reviewed. Sourced. Definitely more authoritative than the notoriously wrong World Gazetteer. If the job could be automated via a robot, even better. Cities grow or get smaller. A new entry in an info box would trigger a new entry in "List of the world's largest cities as per Misplaced Pages."

That list would have 12,790,000 people for Tokyo, it would have 22,000,000 people for Beijing, it would have 31,442,300 people for Chongqing, 8,363,710 for New York City , 7,937,932 for Lagos and so forth. Discussion whether right or wrong would be kept to the respective articles. I'm not asking who's for or against it. I'm asking who's volunteering to help. --BsBsBs (talk) 19:55, 22 April 2010(UTC)

How can you say it won't make much difference statistically? Chongqing is not even a major city and yet it would appear at the very top of your list simply because local officials decided to call an entire region a "municipality." According to the method you are proposing, the vast majority of people counted within the "largest" cities would actually be living in rural areas. That clearly violates the very purpose of the article to begin with, and will only lead to widespread confusion among readers. --Jleon (talk) 20:11, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

See this is exactly the reason why I want to make the new list. If local officials decide to call an entire region a "municipality" then that's what it is. It's their country. (And in that case, it wasn't local officials, it was China's Central Government.) Have you ever been to Chongqing? We are making a farce out of Misplaced Pages. The entry of a city says one thing, and then there are numerous self-styled lists that say something else. (Also the "statistically, it won't make much difference" was a reference to Tokyo's islands.) Look: In this list, it says Chongqing has 4,776,027 people. Then you click on the Chongqing link provided, and suddenly, you see 31,442,300 people. How is that for consistency? --BsBsBs (talk) 20:29, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

The Chongqing article may have the 30 million number listed, but the introduction paragraphs clearly explain what that number actually consists of. Dumping all of these wacky numbers into a list and making people think that the "city" of Chongqing has 30 million people would be the real farce. --Jleon (talk) 20:31, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

If the numbers in the infoboxes are "wacky", and if they "lead to widespread confusion among readers" then you are calling Misplaced Pages "wacky", and "leading to widespread confusion among readers." I'm telling you what's wacky. 4,776,027 people for Chongqing. Anyway, this discussion needs to end. Ok, you clearly are not on the team. Who is? --BsBsBs (talk) 20:36, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

We can't use Misplaced Pages a source. Due to the open nature of Misplaced Pages, it is not regarded as a reliable source. Furthermore, city infoboxes are sometimes vandalized and some cities are not even well maintained, so using other articles is not a good idea. At this time then, I'll have to oppose the idea. Elockid 01:13, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, not true. reliable source says: "Tertiary sources such as compendia, encyclopedias, textbooks, and other summarizing sources may be used to give overviews or summaries, but should not be used in place of secondary sources for detailed discussion. Misplaced Pages articles are tertiary sources and should not be used as sources within articles." A list referencing and summarizing one entry in Misplaced Pages articles inherently qualifies as an "overview or summary" and is hence legit. Strict adherence to the rule would disqualify the many tertiary sources such as the Gazetteer anyway. Should Misplaced Pages not be deemed as legit, then that list simply needs to reference the source given for the respective entry, and all is good. More work, but rules are rules ... reliable source isn't a rule anyway, it's a guideline. That infoboxes (and more) get vandalized is true. The vandalism usually doesn't last long, at least not in the articles which I help to edit. If some (articles about) cities are not well maintained, then we must spend more energy on that maintenance. A ranking usually helps to motivate better maintenance. Having numerous different population numbers for a city is messy and unprofessional. --BsBsBs (talk) 12:52, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually, WP:Reliable also says to avoid open wikis. This is an open wiki. Furthermore, it doesn't fit the criteria of verifiability. Elockid 13:13, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Aha. So basically, no number in the infoboxes of the world's greatest cities can be trusted because they are unverifiable, even with a class A reference? Content, researched and peer-reviewed by a cast of thousands is bunk? All the while, arbitrary boundaries, or simply sloppy research is the cat's meow? As an for instance, follow me to Beijing. Population in the infobox: 22 million. Source: National Population and Family Planning Commission of China. 2010-03-02. Can't get more authoritative. Now go to the list here. Beijing, population of "Core districts and inner suburbs" 10,123,000. Source: A Chinese statistics page from 2007. In Chinese. According to WP rules, non-English sources are verboten. With good reason: The author who derived 10,123,000 from that list apparently knows no Chinese and/or no Beijing. Commenter LunJiang, who obviously knows Chinese and Beijing, points out the "fatal mistake". LunJiang is being ignored and the patently false number stays. So this number, which has long exceeded its shelf life, and which is interpreted with total disregard for facts and math, counts as "verifiable information," while latest official data, barely a month old, are dissed as "unverifiable?" I rest my case. --BsBsBs (talk) 15:56, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Non-English sources are not verboten at all. Here's what WP:V says - Because this is the English Misplaced Pages, English-language sources should be used in preference to non-English ones, except where no English source of equal quality can be found that contains the relevant material. If people are misinterpreting the data, that should of course be corrected, but your factual claim here is wrong. john k (talk) 22:27, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

A proposal editing BsBsBs's above

I too believe that the exact numbers are muddled and not completely accurate because the definition of the "city" itself is not laid down. Thus I have a proposal to end these confusements, although not in as much as a rude attitude.

Basically, I believe that we could set up MULTIPLE graphs on this page. Although it would be kind of hard and tedious to make, it'll just be for the better. -One will be the one we have now on the page, for practical purposes.

-The second one is based on solely the infrastructure and metro-city. These will come from various sources, since it seems sources seem to be a problem here. If these sources are contradictory, then 1st we'd just rat out the ones that are from unreliable sources. As for the rest, it would be best to average them. Another choice is to make multiple extra columns so that we can show each source, saying the population and then saying "From....as by (date)"

-The third one will be the same, except these will INCLUDE the suburban areas. This too will have the same type of source system thing as what I just said, also depending on if we're gonna average the sources, or put their stats individually.

There it is, and I think it'll work if we aren't lazy not to do it (I know I am, so I hope someone else would do this ^^")

--When Chuck Norris takes a step, all humanity dies and gets reborn again Mr. High School Student 21:56, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Infrastructure or metro-city looks like agglomeration or metropolitan area and we already have lists for those. Adding them to this article would be redundant. Secondly, the inclusion of urban areas looks like metropolitan area again or to some extent urban areas. We also already have a list for that. Elockid 01:16, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I am not advocating to touch this list. I am advocating a new, strictly Misplaced Pages-sourced list. I will start one, unless such a list already exists. --BsBsBs (talk) 12:11, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Mr. High School Student, there already is something similar to what you are talking about at the World's largest cities article, although I think very few people ever see this table because of a poor number of internal links to it. I think this table also accomplishes much of what BsBsBs is proposing, just in a different format. --Jleon (talk) 15:22, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Jleon: World's largest cities is an honorable endeavor, as it attempts to appease everybody. It definitely does not accomplish what I am proposing. World's largest cities stands and falls with its sources. Most of them are outdated or wrong. Do a test using a city you know, and you will find out. I am only interested in the official data, provided by the official statistical entities for the respective area within the boundaries of the respective area. Counting artificial "urban core" or "metro numbers" are nice for studies, but they are misleading in this context, and arbitrary. If the Amt fuer Statistik of Berlin-Brandenburg states that the latest population for Berlin is 3,439,100, then I edit the infobox of Berlin to reflect that number (as I just did.) If the National Population and Family Planning Commission of China tells me that the population of the Municipality of Beijing "exceeds 22 million" then I edit Beijing to reflect that number (as I did before). Anything else is either dishonest or is original research (to put it mildly.) I have covered the Misplaced Pages lists of World's largest cities - all over the map. World Atlas: Hopelessly wrong. Düsseldorf, where I lived for many years, has some 600,000 people, World Atlas says 3,251,000. Beijing has 22 million people, World Atlas says 12 million. Tokyo, where I maintain a residence, has some 13 million people, World Atlas says 28 million. Let's move on to "City Population" - it uses "The principal Agglomerations of the World" as a source, and it is wrong again. It has Beijing at 13.6 million, Tokyo at 34 million, Berlin at 4.3 million. If I tell my wife (who is from Tokyo) that Kanagawa and Yokohama are counted as parts of Tokyo, she laughs. I lived in New York City for many years. If you tell a New Yorker that Newark and Paterson are part of "da city" you'll hear "get outta town!" All in all, I have found that the Misplaced Pages articles are usually coming closest to the truth, they are most timely and well maintained. At least for the cities I know, and I lived all over the world.

To illustrate the degree of messiness, I have compiled this short list of lists that list the city where I live, Beijing. I am sure there are more. Try this experiment for the city where you live, or any other city, and you will come to similar results, especially in rapidly developing areas.

Misplaced Pages Lists

List of cities in the People's Republic of China by urban population: Beijing, urban core, 7,296,962

List of cities in the People's Republic of China by population: Beijing, Metro area population, 13,200,000

List of cities in the People's Republic of China by population: Beijing, Administrative Area Population, 17,430,00

List of cities in the People's Republic of China: Beijing, urban core, 7,296,962

List of cities proper by population: Beijing, Core districts + inner suburbs, 10,123,000

List of towns and cities with 100,000 or more inhabitants: Beijing, points to Beijing (22 million)

List of metropolitan areas by population: Beijing, per Forestal, 12,500,000

List of national capitals: Beijing, points to Beijing (22 million)

List of national capitals by population: Beijing, 7,741,274

List of largest cities and second largest cities by country: Beijing, points to Beijing (22 million)

List of urban agglomerations by population (United Nations): Beijing, 12,385,000

External Lists

WorldAtlas: Beijing 12,033,000

World Gazetteer: Beijing 12 522 839

The Principal Agglomerations Of The World: Beijing, China 13,600,000

Five observations:

1.) The numbers are all over the place.

2.) There are numerous entries that are totally unsourced

3.) There are lists that reference the city article, supposedly in circumvention of above cited Misplaced Pages rules

4.) The only lists that produce the correct and official number, are the lists that reference the city article

5.) The compiled lists apparently cannot keep up with the many changes in city population or counting method. Use Beijing as an example. A commonly reported number for the metro population is around 12 million. This stems from the times when China only counted members with a Beijing family register (hukou). The many people who come to the city but have their hukou somewhere else, were not counted. These people are officially called "temporary residents" even if they have lived there for years. Around 2007, they became part of the count, and the official number went to 17.4 million. Their number increases, hence a few years later, the total population of Beijing stands at more than 22 million. The misunderstanding of the methodology kept the "temporary residents" out of many lists. The maintainers of the city articles usually are (or become) aware of these nuances.

QED.

--BsBsBs (talk) 17:16, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay, enough with this already, I think I know what you basically want, a source check. That's what I said JUST ABOVE, so I'm going to go ahead and add it above. I believe that the World's largest cities article is great, but I know it is wrong, as you are constantly arguing. So, once again, it is possible we average these sources. Then again, these pages that you are presenting are for different levels of the city, NOT the same type, so it's not COMPLETELY wrong in truth.

--When Chuck Norris takes a step, all humanity dies and gets reborn again Mr. High School Student 13:08, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Right, every list is for something different. If there are mistakes within them, then we should try to fix them. The furthest thing from a solution would be to create yet another list with yet another set of numbers. --Jleon (talk) 14:47, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Those lists are not even using the same definition. You're basically comparing apples to oranges. Metropolitan areas nor urban areas nor agglomerations do not represent what a city proper is in any way. Secondly, each source has a different criteria of measuring population, so of course you're going to get different numbers. With some sources they measure it this way: agglomerations and urban areas, the built-up definition is used where the population is based on how many people live in a contiguously developed urban area. In the concept of "built-up" area, Beijing comes nowhere close to even 20 million people. This is the same for Chongqing where huge rural areas are included and are not necessarily part of the urban area areas themselves. This seems evident with the other lists and sources.

Anyways, administrative definitions are the most controversial when comparing city to city in my opinion. Just take a look at the list the UN gives out every year where they try as much as possible to use official data for agglomerations. That list is ridiculed for being inaccurate even with references to agglomerations. London vs. New York is an argument you'll hear a lot. People complain all the time that the US definition is "too soft" giving New York a much higher population for the metropolitan area than London. Elockid 15:12, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I’m sorry, I’m of a totally different opinion. “Metropolitan area”, “city proper”, “built up area” etc, are all vague concepts, open to interpretation and manipulation, as amply evidenced by the above. If people want to count agglomerations, MSAs or whatever, fine, let them. That discussion will never end.

A city however usually has a defined city limit. In my book, when we count the population of a city, then we count the people who actually live within the administrative boundaries of that city. And we don’t count them, we let the official counters do the counting. It’s their city, it’s their definition, and it’s their statistics. It’s up to them how wide or how narrow they draw the city lines. Tax rolls, voter records, court jurisdictions, police jurisdiction et al are all based on that simple principle. If I live on the wrong side of the road, then I live in Nassau County instead of New York City. Trying to redefine this, or making it fit one’s worldview, simply leads to disaster and never ending discussions about apples, oranges, and whole fruit baskets.

Even with rigidly administrative boundaries applied, the task remains immense: Borders are being redrawn. Cities join. Parts split off. Wars break out. The methodology of keeping count changes. Certain terms have different meanings in different parts of the world. The “City of London” can have a population of 7000, or of over 7 million, depending how we look at it. A “metropolis” can be a vague concept in one part of the word, or it can describe a tightly defined area, such as the one under the purview of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. A “municipality” can be a village, a district, a ward, a borough, or a monster like Chongqing. Some countries keep careful tabs on their people. Others, the U.S.A. comes to mind, doesn’t even know how many people live where. I lived in a village on Long Island, that had a Winter population of 900, and a Summer population of over 6000. Estimated. Nobody really knew. Just staying current with annual releases of official population figures is a chore. To wit, the "fatal mistake" with Beijing, which still isn't fixed. Political agenda, anyone?

Keeping up with the minutiae of official counts needs knowledge. Especially in parts of the world where they don’t publish the results in English. This knowledge usually centers around the city articles. They usually are right. There, usually, sanity prevails.

Who am I to argue with you whether “in the concept of "built-up" area, Beijing comes nowhere close to even 20 million people?” If the people who do the statistics on Beijing write that Beijing has more than 22 million people, then I cite it.

Who am I to argue that an island 2000 km away from Shinjuku station can’t possibly belong to Tokyo? If the Tokyo Metropolitan Government tells me that Okinotorishima is a part of Tokyo, then I might shake my head. But I have not other choice than to accept it.

Lastly, let’s not forget how List of metropolitan areas by population started. As an article titled “Why Lists Of Major Urban Areas Vary So Greatly.” Good idea. Until its authors couldn’t help it and came up with yet another list of major urban areas. Which gained notoriety. Never mind that it’s just as wrong as the lists the authors criticized.

To finish my rant, there is one thing that doesn’t want in my head: We spend hours, days, some people spend a whole life on Misplaced Pages. And then we disregard the most simple data point: The population of a city, as listed in the Misplaced Pages article of that city. By the way: This is where people look first. BsBsBs (talk) 17:32, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that you are using the term “city” interchangeably with the concept of administrative boundaries, when that is clearly not how most Misplaced Pages editors think when they edit articles about cities outside the U.S. A perfect example of this is between the articles on Beijing and Shanghai. Beijing’s municipality is listed with a population of 22,000,000 and yet the introduction of the article states that Beijing is China’s second largest city after Shanghai. Shanghai’s article claims that its municipality has a population of 19,210,000. That means that someone will see your list and believe that Beijing is a larger “city” than Shanghai (whatever the term “city” might mean in their own mind), and then when they read the article on Beijing they will see that it is only the second largest city. What I’m trying to point out is that your idea is not going to do anything to reduce the amount of confusion on this matter, and will likely only serve to increase it. --Jleon (talk) 18:03, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry. My correct and consistent sentence "After Chongqing and before Shanghai, Beijing is the second largest of the four municipalities of the PRC. In the PRC, a direct-controlled municipality (直辖市 in pinyin: zhíxiáshì) is a city with equal status to a province." was banned into demographics. (You made my point btw. The new ranking the not-yet-existent list triggered an edit in the article.) The Infobox refers to the Municipality, the entry refers to a vague idea of a city by one of the editors. Attempts to rectify it turned into an edit war. See discussion. Shanghai's municipality number needs updating. It is as of 2007. If it is not kept current, then yes, on my list Beijing would come after Chongqing and before Shanghai - until Shanghai is brought current. I do not maintain Shanghai. Beijing is a municipality, and proud of it. It could very well be that Beijing has overtaken Shanghai. Shanghai has experienced negative population growth.By the way, the Shanghai data in this article is way off.Could have been fixed while checking the sources ... BsBsBs (talk) 18:51, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

But you still insist on using the word "city" in the article you are proposing. Perhaps using the word "municipality" would be more approriate. Saying that Beijing is a larger "city" than Shanghai, and that Chongqing is the world's largest "city" are both complete distortions. --Jleon (talk) 19:28, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

The Chinese beg to differ. And they are more ... "In the PRC, a direct-controlled municipality is a city with equal status to a province." If they decide to call an area twice the size of the Netherlands a city / municipality, who are we to correct them? It's their country. And as things stand, Beijing is a larger city/municipality than Shanghai. I'm looking from a 40th floor window at Beijing's nightly skyline, and I'm beginning to believe it. Been to Chongqing, Shanghai, Beijing lately? BsBsBs (talk) 20:03, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't need to go to Chongqing to tell you that it isn't the world's largest city. This seems to be more about you wanting Beijing to be listed higher on the list than it is about anything else. As China is among the only countries that have decided to promote provinces to municipal status for some inexplicable reason, I imagine your opinion on all of this would change rather fast if administrative definitions change elsewhere. If you choose to start this article with the word "city" in its title, I think a lot of people will move for its deletion. If you use "municipality," I think you will have an easier time keeping it. Enough said. --Jleon (talk) 20:40, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

So the Chinese made the wrong decision, and you, Jleon, will punish them for that? In any case, your complaint that "China is among the only countries that have decided to promote provinces to municipal status for some inexplicable reason" is another reason for leaving these matters in knowledgeable hands. Nobody has "promoted provinces to municipal status" (and even if they would, their choice, sovereign country and all that.) The city of Chongqing had been carved out of Sichuan Province in 1997, and was given direct-controlled municipality/city status, equal to a province. Reason? Theirs. If you would go there, someone would explain it to you, I'm sure. Chongqing joined the direct-controlled municipalities/cities of Shanghai, Beijing, and Tianjin. The concept is far from unique. The cities of Hamburg and Bremen had this status since the middle ages. Ever contemplated the status of the District of Columbia? Walk across Key Bridge and kill someone in Rosslyn, you may get death. Do the killing back in Georgetown, you'll live. What do you call Monaco? A city or a country? Up to you, both correct. What will you do with Vatican City? Guess what, it's a sovereign state, population 800, mostly male. The world is full of surprises.

As far as my intentions go, you are jumping to conclusions again. I could care less which city is the largest. If Tokyo would annex Kanegawa and Yokohama, so be it. If the Netherlands would declare themselves a city-state, fine by me. But if someone comes and tells me that Hong Kong and Shenzhen should be counted as one (foul play, Forstall, Greene, and Pick,stand in the corner,) then I would argue that voiciferously. And I would have the people of Hong Kong (who want to keep the riff-raff out) and the people of China (who want to go there without having to ask for permission) on my side.

Privately, I question the intentions of people who do not want to accept the reality of clearly defined city limits. City too small for some tastes? "Oh, in reality, it's much larger. We must count the suburbs, the commuters, the urban sprawl that reaches far beyond those petty artificial city limits." City too big for some tastes? "Oh, those cheeky bastards are cheating. In reality, the city is much smaller. We may only count the core districts, the built-up area, the city proper, and disregard those outrageous artificial city limits."

Tell you what: It's their country, their choice, not yours nor mine. If you live in Paterson, you get a New Jersey license plate, a Paterson birth certificate, and pay New Jersey State taxes. If you live in a cave in Yanqing County, they will give you a Beijing license plate, and Beijing's Finest will knock on you door (if you have one) and check whether you had registered properly with the police of your city, namely Beijing. There is nothing you or I can, or should do about it.

With municipality instead of city you are totally wrong. "Municipality" is totally generic, it can mean anything, from a village to a monster. "City", "town", "village", "township", "municipality", "metro" are just words. Sometimes badly translated. Sometimes creating endless Misplaced Pages discourse about nothing. To wit, the City on London. What counts is what those words mean in reality. And not in virtual reality. BsBsBs (talk) 21:13, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Tokyo again

I moved this comment by Ecorahul from the article to the discussion page, where it belongs. Text follows:

"According to a latest population census, Tokyo's population has crossed 13 Million mark for the first time in history, in short it means now Tokyo is the 3rd largest city in World !!! For reference please see: Japantimes news or Wiki's Tokyo page for its population. Thus the population table needs to be updated accordingly."

Apart from this, I maintain my position to leave the definition of a city to the people who live there. "City proper" is often arbitrary and unsourced.

--BsBsBs (talk) 05:49, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

City Proper definition

Where is the definition of 'City Proper'? I find it amazing that an article can by implication of its title and the first line of the article claim that such a concept is well defined and yet make no attempt to define it. The link provided is worse. Not only does it not lead to an article of that title, the article linked does not clarify the issue at all, and in fact makes no reference to city proper anywhere. For someone wishing to clarify what is meant by the term it is nothing but a waste of time. If 'city proper' is in fact something other than a few people's confused idea of one way of defining a city then at the very least a clear definition should be offered. It can then be refined if necessary into something agreed at least within Misplaced Pages and possibly of more general utility. treesmill (talk) 19:48, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Original research with no value

Despite the title, this is not a list of cities proper, not by any stretch of imagionation. I guess it started out as a proper list, but since people love to use Misplaced Pages to make nationalistic claims, numerous editors want to inflate the population of their city. At the moment, the list contains the population of the city proper for some cities, for others it contains the whole metropolitan area or even the whole province where the city is located. Neither the title nor the introduction are correct. On the contrary, they give a rather dishonest impression as they make this list out to be something it's not. I changed the introduction to better reflect what the list is about: the old introduction claimed that the list only focuses on cities proper, not on metropolitan areas, which obviously is not true. I must admit that my new introduction sounds rather ridiculous, but that is unfortunately just a reflection of the list's content. I would suggest we find one reliable source and use that source. I don't want to nominate the list for AfD as I think the topic is noteable. That's why it's particularly sad that the list is as bad and unreliable as it is.Jeppiz (talk) 21:03, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I reverted your edits to the intro until the issue is debated here at the talk-page. For starters, Can you give us some examples of wrongly defined "cities proper"? Thanks, --IANVS (talk | cont) 21:06, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

To the defense of treesmill and Jeppiz

treesmill rightly asked for a definition of “City proper”. He received silence. Jeppiz was absolutely correct when he edited “This is a list of the most populous cities of the world defined according to the concept of city proper for some cities while using other definitions for other cities.” That was called an “unsourced bold statement.” That he is correct stares you right into the eye when you look at that list. Under “definition” it sometimes says “City proper”, too often, it says something else. He rightly wrote that “since people love to use Misplaced Pages to make nationalistic claims, numerous editors want to inflate the population of their city.” (Let me add that there are just as many people who like to deflate the population of other cities.) He was also correct when he wrote “I must admit that my new introduction sounds rather ridiculous, but that is unfortunately just a reflection of the list's content.” I can only imagine how Jeppiz felt when he was slapped around. According to the list, "city proper" can mean anything from "core districts" (who decides?) to "statistical area" (who picks which one?) “City proper” has become the multifunction tool of Misplaced Pages: Use it as you see fit. Too many people? Let's just use the inner core as city proper! Not enough people? Let's find a big statistical area! Don't like a number? Hit revert!

So what is a “city proper?”

To anybody who a.) has a working knowledge of the English language, and b.) has his or her head screwed on correctly, „city proper“ can only mean one thing: “The city within its clearly defined proper city boundaries.” Or for the nitpickers: “The municipality within its proper administrative boundaries.” Logic not enough? Need proof?

City proper redirects to City limits. Corporate limits redirects to City limits

City limits says:

“The term city limits (or city boundary) refers to the defined boundary or border of a city. The terms town limits and village limits mean the same as city limits, but apply to towns and villages Similarly, the term corporate limits is a legal name that refers to the boundaries of municipal corporations.”

Via a redirect, Misplaced Pages defines “City proper” as the area within the borders of the respective municipal unit.

In the intro of this article, it is claimed that the list follows the City limits concept. However, many entries in this list don't. Apparently, a better sourced definition is needed.

• In Yahoo Answers, the question What is the meaning of a "city proper"? receives as a four star rated answer: “It refers to the officially defined legal boundaries of a city, which means there is no ambiguity -- you are either IN the city proper, or not. The complementary phrase is the "greater city." This refers to the city proper PLUS outlying areas; thus you have, for example, "Portland proper," and "Greater Portland," the latter including more or less all the suburbs and outlying unincorporated areas.”

• Merriam-Webster gives as one example for “proper: “6 : strictly limited to a specified thing, place, or idea <the city proper>”

• Sensagent gives as one example for “proper: “4.limited to the thing specified "the city proper" "his claim is connected with the deed proper"

• The Free Dictionary gives as one example for “proper: “5. Being within the strictly limited sense, as of a term designating something: the town proper, excluding the suburbs.”

• Nations Online says: “City proper is defined as a locality with legally fixed boundaries and an administratively recognized urban status that is usually characterized by some form of local government.”

• The San Diego Accountants Guide dedicates a whole page to “city proper” beginning with “The term City limits refers to the defined Boundary or Border of a City. The terms Town limits and Village limits mean the same as city limits, but apply to towns and villages.” As we can see, the San Diego accountants wholeheartedly adopted the Misplaced Pages definition.

All these sources agree that “city proper” (or town, municipality, village, whatever) is the area strictly limited to the limits of this administrative area, and nothing else.

The usage of “city proper” for “inner core” or “built-up area” is wrong. Using “city proper for anything beyond the city limits would be utterly improper.

Therefore, using “city proper” properly

• “Tokyo proper is the Tokyo Metro including all islands thousands of km away, but not the Tokyo Megalopolis. It is not just the 23 special wards.

• “Chongqing proper” is Chongqing as properly defined and administered by the Chongqing Municipal government. It is not just the core districts.

• "Beijing proper" is Beijing as properly defined and administered by the Beijing Municipal government. It is not just the core districts and inner suburbs (which are misrepresented in this list anyway.)

• "Shanghai proper" is Shanghai as properly defined and administered by the Shanghai Municipal government. It is not just the core districts and inner suburbs

• “London proper” is London as properly defined by the Greater London Authority

The population of a city proper is the number of people who officially live within the boundaries of the respective municipality. This number is usually provided by the relevant agency of that municipality.

Redefining “city proper” to anything else than the proper, clearly defined administrative area is a perversion of the word “proper,” a perversion of “city proper” as commonly understood, and it amounts to a gross example of original research, if not patent nonsense.

List of cities proper by population MUST reflect the official population of the respective city proper, i.e. the population within its proper and clearly defined administrative area.

Spare me the lectures that Misplaced Pages is not a reliable source, and that encyclopedias are tertiary sources. I am making these points on a talk page. I will not engage in wikilawyering. I am open to a discussion that uses common sense. In the meantime, I have changed the intro. I have added a properly sourced definition for "city proper", removed the "well-defined statistical groupings of such units" (wrong), and removed the weasel-worded "the meaning and role of the political units taken for the purpose of this list to be the "city proper" are not and cannot be wholly consistent, owing to the differing systems of local government around the world." Unsourced and not true. And it contradicts the rest of the paragraph. All that's left to do is bring the list up to the clear standard. -- BsBsBs (talk) 18:21, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

The proper way to express disagreement with the article as currently constituted is to add a factually disputed tag, not to rewrite the introduction in a ridiculous way. The article is meant to be a list of the populations of "cities proper." If the article doesn't do that accurately, then you should dispute it, and we should try to figure out how to make it as accurate as possible. Jeppiz's change is a WP:POINT violation - he wants to draw attention to his disagreement with the way the article is currently organized by making a ridiculous change in the article's introduction. john k (talk) 22:22, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

BTW, I think everyone would agree that where an agglomeration or urban area extends beyond the borders of a government-defined municipality, that the "city proper" is, in that case, the government-defined municipality. When the agglomeration is contained within a government-defined municipality, or when you have a situation, as with many British places, where the government unit contains several towns that have long been considered distinct (and which have specific statistical and post office definitions, even if no local government of their own), that is when there may be some question. Is Sandwell a "city proper"? Which is the city proper, Doncaster (i.e., the former county borough) or the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster? I think saying that the Metropolitan Boroughs are the "city" is really problematic, especially since the British government actually designates "city proper" boundaries within the various metropolitan boroughs and such. Basically, my thought is that "city proper" should basically mean "whatever is smallest," with perhaps a few obvious exceptions (it wouldn't do to consider London to be the City of London or the City of Sydney; I'm not sure about Brussels). Lots of local government units call themselves "cities" or "municipalities," even when they are patently not. We can't treat that as the last word, or else every prefecture-level city in China has to be counted as a city, which would be ridiculous. john k (talk) 22:42, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

You are right back on the slippery slope of “that which must not, cannot be.” The second one starts making up reasons why a city proper (i.e. a clearly defined administrative unit) can’t possibly be a city proper, one creates a mess. To wit: the mess of this list. We better leave that to the people who live in those cities, and who administer them. If you think what they do is ridiculous, please tell them. Enter local politics. But don't rewrite facts. By definition, a city proper starts and ends at the city limits, whatever and wherever those may be. Everything else is WP:OR, as far as Misplaced Pages goes, and ignorance, as far as the world goes. The sentence “Basically, my thought is that "city proper" should basically mean "whatever is smallest," with perhaps a few obvious exceptions (it wouldn't do to consider London to be the City of London or the City of Sydney; I'm not sure about Brussels)” illustrates the slipperiness of the slope. No, you can’t do that. The minute you start to “think”, the minute you start making decisions, you make mistakes, you perform WP:OR, and you create endless debates. In the end, you create a useless list nobody takes seriously. We have to reflect verifiable facts here, and not our ideas of what the world should be. We are not here to redraw maps, set up new police departments, or create new tax rolls. If we want to contribute to this list, our sole job is to find the latest reliable source for the population of that city proper, reference it, and enter the proper number in the list. If we think that’s not enough, then we must enter politics. -- BsBsBs (talk) 06:39, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Things have improved slightly in that there is now something that approximates to a definition which can be discussed. However, I must quarrel with the statement that "City proper is commonly defined as a locality with legally fixed boundaries and an administratively recognized urban status that is usually characterized by some form of local government.". I disagree with the words 'commonly defined'. A Google search for "city proper" throws up no definition that isn't connected to this article. That being the case there cannot be said to be a common definition and in fact the concept seems effectively confined to Misplaced Pages and is thus original and should not be the subject of an article at all. It should be deleted.

Even if this problem is ignored, the problem simply moves down a step. The statement quoted above effectively says that a city proper is whatever the local authority says it is. Instead of a definition of city proper we have a whole array of definitions created by different people for different reasons with little common ground and mostly if not entirely different. City proper is therefore non-encyclopaedic and the article should be deleted. treesmill (talk) 07:34, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I have removed "commonly." However, the rest of the statement stays. It remains the only concise quotable definition I could find. You have supplied an even more concise definition: "A city proper is whatever the local authority says it is." That is the heart of the truth. Too bad we can't use that as a reference. As far as the rest goes: We need to live with the fact that people in this world won't agree on everything. -- BsBsBs (talk) 14:05, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

You are aware that the slippery slope is a logical fallacy that you are engaging in here, right? john k (talk) 22:11, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not here to split hairs over slippery slope. This article claims that the list follows the City limits concept. City proper redirects to city limits. The limits begin and end where the local authorities say they do. One needs such a clear, non-debatable delineation. I assume Sandwell and Doncaster are close to your heart, if not close to where you live. If you already have trouble sorting those out, if you already give up on Brussels, how will you decide what the proper population of Lagos, Wuhan, or Yokohama is? It is hard enough to research and to update the official population counts of clearly defined administrative units. (Kindly follow me to the "Note" part of List of Chinese administrative divisions by population for an example.) Once the limits of "City proper" are up for discussion, confusion reigns. When it comes to paying your taxes, or the jurisdiction of your police and courts, you will hardly find someone who will engage in a discussion about finding a middle ground. You might find yourself in the proper jail instead. This list will not and cannot come up with its own definition of "city proper." The intro should now be clear enough: "This is a list of the most populous cities of the world defined according to the concept of city proper (city without its suburbs). City proper is defined as a locality with legally fixed boundaries and an administratively recognized urban status that is usually characterized by some form of local government." As far as cities go, we simply need to open our minds. Hamburg, Bremen, and Berlin are both cities and states. Beijing,Chongqing,Shanghai, and Tianjin are direct-controlled municipalities with equal status to a Chinese province. Tokyo has the same status as a Japanese prefecture. Tiny Monaco and even tinier Vatican City are cities (the latter with a population of 800) and sovereign countries. Someone from Chongqing will have a hard time understanding how a rock called San Marino with a population of 30,000 can be a sovereign state (and why it needs to be divided into 9 municipalities). Just like it doesn't want to enter the mind of most people in the rest of the world that a city they never heard about, namely Chongqing, has the temerity of calling itself the world's most populous city. It is what it is. We are not here to rewrite history or geography. We are just humble scribes who document verifiable facts. Did I mention that this alone is hard enough? -- BsBsBs (talk) 06:49, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Sandwell and Doncaster are nowhere near where I live; I'm American. Beyond that, a "city" is not really analogous to a "country" or "state." A state is a purely political concept. Monaco may be tiny, but that is irrelevant to whether it is a state, because states are political designations. A city is not the same at all - a city is a geographical concept as much as a political one. Including vast rural areas as part of a "city," is seriously problematic. And once we do that, I'll ask again about prefecture-level cities, which are local government units that are explicitly called "cities". Why is Chongqing a "city proper" but Mianyang is not? Administrative subdivisions that includes thousands of square miles of countryside are not "cities" in the normally understood meaning of that word, even if they call themselves "cities." john k (talk) 15:04, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

You need to get out more. People all over the world have different definitions of "cities", and it is not up to us to correct them. If a Chinese city decides to include vast rural areas, then we have to suck it up and accept it. It's their country, it's their city. The "normally understood meaning of the word" changes as you move around in the world. If you want to add prefecture-level cities such as Mianyang, go ahead. They have all right to be on the list. Before you do that, I recommend focusing on the sub-provincial cities of China first: Ningbo, Hangzhou, Xi'an, Changchun, Harbin, Shenyang, Shenzhen, Jinan, Wuhan, Chengdu, Qingdao, Dalian, Xiamen, Nanjing, Guangzhou. Some are on the list, some aren't. We have a clear definition of "City proper" : City proper is defined as a locality with legally fixed boundaries and an administratively recognized urban status that is usually characterized by some form of local government. If that applies to Mianyang, then it should be on the list. Its population appears to be higher than that of Berlin. -- BsBsBs (talk) 18:10, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

City is an English word with a history going back 1000 years or so. The commonly understood meaning of a word cannot be trumped by administrative definitions by various governments. john k (talk) 00:23, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Urban renewal

I have started to bring the list in compliance with the definition of “City proper” in the lead: City proper is defined as a locality with legally fixed boundaries and an administratively recognized urban status that is usually characterized by some form of local government. I have attempted to insert the proper population of some places I am familiar with. This is a good faith best effort, far from being perfect. Being in China, I tackled the Chinese cities first. They are complicated. Some count residents with a hukou only and call that “permanent population”, some add the hukou and non-hukou population and call that “permanent.”

This is what I’ve done:

• I removed “rank”. Adding a rank could be seen as WP:OR . The rank will also change as the list is edited. It is sortable, no rank necessary.
• In population, I entered the population number for city proper, i.e. the count within the administrative boundaries. No more “inner core”, no more “statistical areas”
• I gave the population reference a separate column, adding the ref to the count breaks the sort. I tried using the most up to date official number issued by the statistical bureau of the respective municipality. Please try the same when editing. I do not trust other lists, like World Gazetteer or Citypopulation.
• Definition: I suggest using this column for the definition of the type of municipality, otherwise, enter "City proper"
• Area, Population density: I did not touch them yet. I suggest we remove these columns unless someone wants to go to the trouble of recalculating the density number
• Update: When updating please enter date of last update here- If no date, entry needs review/update. I only reviewed/edited the ones with a date. Please add a date so that we’ll know what needs more work.

Lagos was a test for me. I have no idea of Lagos. Never been there. No idea. After googling, I entered the number for the Lagos state. This could be totally wrong. I just don’t know.

Clearly, many entries need work and research. With a little help from all corners of the world, maybe we’ll get to a list we can be proud of. -- BsBsBs (talk) 19:04, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

This is becoming rather self-referential. Before we start changing around the list so that it conforms to the definition in the introduction, oughtn't we determine whether that definition itself is appropriate? john k (talk) 00:24, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Simple test: Go down to City Hall and tell them that you want to pay real estate taxes in the next city/county/administrative area. You also want their PD to respond when you call 911. At the next census, you want to be counted there. One of the nicest answers you will hear is: "Sure. No problem. Move there." Most of all, it is not up to us to "determine" what "is appropriate." If you want that, you need to enter politics, or at least journalism. All we are allowed to do is reflect verifiable facts. -- BsBsBs (talk) 04:45, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Quite the non sequitur. john k (talk) 16:45, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

My take on "city proper"

There are two approaches I can think of for defining what is a "city proper." One is to say, A city proper is a municipality. Another is to say, A city proper is a well-defined area that can be called a city. I'd like to make a case for the second approach to be used on this list:

So, let's say we made a list of the cities in the world according to their municipal boundaries. We'd have something like this at the beginning:

This list is very correct. All the populations refer to those within city limits, whatever definition those city limits may have. However, the information is not very useful. Chongqing may be at the top of the list, but so what? The definition of its city limits refers to an area the size of Austria, much of which is rural. However, Mumbai's city limits cover a highly developed area less than 1% of that size. Comparing the two cities based on their population by this definition is very misleading.

Now I'm going to take the same method (municipalities only) and apply it to just cities in Australia. In Australia, a local government area is a municipality. Here's what we get, as taken directly from List of cities in Australia by population#25_largest_Local_Government_Areas_by_population:

Again, a list such as this may be misleading. Now, with Sydney down at #19, and Melbourne way down at #79, one may get the impression that they are not very important cities. However, they are very important cities. But based on other definitions such as the ones in the articles Sydney and Melbourne, these two cities would be right at the top of the list. So why not use those definitions instead?

Now, some of you who are reading this are probably going to respond, "This is a list of cities proper. The title of the article is 'List of cities proper by population.' The definition given in the introduction says that a city proper is 'a locality with legally fixed boundaries and an administratively recognized urban status that is usually characterized by some form of local government.' For Chongqing, that means the entire direct-controlled municipality. Like it or not, that is what the article is supposed to do. That is its purpose."

However, this article's purpose isn't very defined. You can't speak for the original creator of the page, and even the original creator of the page can't be credited with the ability to state exactly what its purpose is -- the consensus may be to do something else. But Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia, and therefore its purpose as a whole is to present reliable, helpful information to its readers. A list of municipalities is not very helpful. A list of cities, by varying but clear definitions, that more or less compensates for the differences in municipality sizes in different parts of the world, would be more helpful and would allow readers to compare cities and arrive at more or less reasonable conclusions. If this comes into conflict with the introduction, then the introduction can be rewritten. Even the title can be changed -- there's a "move" button at the top of the page, isn't there? We could call it something different, like "List of cities by population." What's the harm in that? Whatever we do, we should come to a consensus about what it is -- otherwise we'll be editing the article back and forth based on our own ideas of what it should be.

Thoughts? Someone the Person (talk) 22:11, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

This is all entirely sensible. john k (talk) 22:16, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I find it extremely helpful to the reader to finally publish the official population counts within clearly defined administrative limits. I shudder at the thought of "A list of cities, by varying but clear definitions, that more or less compensates for the differences in municipality sizes in different parts of the world." If someone wants to compile a list with that title, please go ahead. It would not be a list of population by city proper. There are so many different lists, one more would do no harm. CGood luck finding verifiable sources. Coming back to this list, we would appreciate it if the list is not edited again to reflect anything else than official population counts within clearly defined administrative limits. We would also appreciate it if edits of the list are done in a way that does not break formatting or sortability. In the meantime, if you want to compensate by municipality size, just hit the "Population Density" sort button. Thank you. -- BsBsBs (talk) 01:51, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

The point that you seem to be missing here is that this does not have to be a list of cities proper. Also, I'm not suggesting that there be an article called "A list of cities, by varying but clear definitions, that more or less compensates for the differences in municipality sizes in different parts of the world" -- I'm just suggesting that that be what this article IS. That is what this article was anyway. If you want a list of municipalities by population, you can go ahead and make one. However, I think it is completely ridiculous to call an area the size of Austria a "city," or even a "city proper," and for now you seem to be the only one in the discussion who disagrees. Someone the Person (talk) 03:04, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

It's certainly untenable to pretend that we are talking about the same category of cities, when the areas vary between 173 Km and 82,400 Km. Salut, --IANVS (talk |cont) 03:27, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

(A more proper title for the article, as it stands today, would be "List of undivided administrative units by population"). Salut, --IANVS (talk | cont) 03:33, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

It is a common fallacy to assume that a municipality is something bigger than a city. West Hampton Dunes, New York, pop. 11, is a municipality. Municipality is generic, it can mean anything from West Hampton Dunes to Chongqing. A list of the population of city proper by definition can include both, but it cannot include Westhampton, New York,pop. 2889, because it is unincorporated. Whether you think that it is completely ridiculous to call an area the size of Austria a "city," or even a "city proper," is irrelevant. You need to take up the matter with the people who made that decision. I bet the people of Chongqing would find it likewise ridiculous that a dune with 11 people can be a municipality with its own mayor, Board of Trustees and police force. Also, last I looked this was a list of cities proper by population. To me, this whole discussion is a proxy for a much bigger conundrum: A city most of the people never heard about can call itself the world's largest city. There is a long list of cities with 4 to 10 million people in China which most people don't know, and can't spell. They dwarf the capitals of many nations. And because of that, we think it's ridiculous, and we do our darnest to define the fact away. -- BsBsBs (talk) 04:36, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

It's not a matter of nationalism, BsBsBs. It's not a problem if the Chinese have got dozens of cities of 4 million people, as long as they can be referred to with the concept "city". If the Chinese, or anyone else, decide to call some administrative division of 82,400Km a "city" (which I doubt), then we'd have to redefine the concept. But stretching the concept is not a solution. Salut, --IANVS (talk | cont) 04:45, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

There goes another fallacious assumption. There is no universal concept of a city. A visit to city can be an eye-opener (and it tells only a small part of the story.) Some countries have rules, some don’t. In some countries, city rights are bestowed, some countries don’t care. In the U.S., the definition of a city varies widely from state to state. It can mean anything from New York City to Circuit City. (My personal favorite is the Urban Dictionary defintion "Can I Touch You?) In Norway, cities have no administrative function. Many of us think a city has to be something big and densely populated, but this is not the case. Ever heard of the City of Meerbusch? I don’t blame you. It didn’t exist until 1970 when some villages near Duesseldorf, Germany, were forced to give up their municipal status and join together into the (official) city of Meerbusch. 70 % of that city is forests or farmland. That land is within the city proper of Meerbusch. A miniature Chongqing. City limits can be in flux. In some places, cities legally absorb towns around them, the city limits grow. In other places, people can hold a referendum, and voila, new city, sorry, I meant municipality. It is a sign of ignorance and intolerance to assume that the world over, things should be what we are used to. The world begs to differ. If someone wants to change the definition of any given city, may I recommend the time tested Misplaced Pages principle of consensus: Go there and start a referendum. In some places you may succeed, this is how West Hampton Dunes, New York, population 11, became a municipality, as ridiculous as it may be. In other places, you probably will get arrested - good luck with getting out the vote to redefine the concept of calling a certain administrative division of 82,400Km a "city." (Yes, they do.) The Chinese can get stubborn in matters of sovereignty. In most other places, you will simply be laughed out of town. -- BsBsBs (talk) 06:43, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

1) I don't know why you assume that every undivided administrative division is a city by default. That is fallacious. 2) You are spousing a radical nominalist position. But even nominalists would agree in that if someone calls an orange "orange", and yet another one calls an apple, "orange", then we have a new concept -not a rather new green/red species of the same old orange. 3) Just in case: I've got no problem at all with multiple, conflicting, even contradictory, definitions of phenomena. But we have to use a single set of criteria/conceptualization if we want to compare them properly.

If we insist in comparing undivided administrative divisions, then we should change the title of the article. If we want to preserve a list of cities, then we should be a little more specific on the criteria for selection.

On a separate note, I'd like to know (you seem to know very well) what are the definitions the Chinese use for its administrative division, and why we should assume that City is a fine translation for Chongqing denomination (whatever it may be). Salut, --IANVS (talk | cont) 15:47, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I am tired of the arguments. Everything that has been said has been said many times. It's very simple: You want a list of cities that feels right. I want a list of cities that reflect the correct population. We'll never agree. The energy is better used to improve the list. It badly needs it. The definition of the Chinese cities can be found on Misplaced Pages. I will not spoon-feed you. You won't believe it anyway. -- BsBsBs (talk) 19:28, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Housekeeping

It would be helpful if we could develop an in-line template that alleviates some of the drudgery. I envision a city_proper_list_entry function/template that takes all necessary info as arguments and then does the heavy lifting. Something like this:

{{city_proper_list_entry|population|population_reference|definition|area|countrycode}}

The population density would calculate itself (population/area).

If possible, the "updated" field would change as the template is edited.

The template would enter the | and |- as needed, preventing messes of the list.

For someone who knows template programming, this could probably be done in minutes. For me, it would mean at least a day of study.

One more thing: Do we need references for the area? WP says yes, yet it is largely ignored here. Apparently for reason: Sometimes, the area is hard to research. I admit that I usually take the area from the respective WP entry, a practice that so far remained unchallenged. If we need a reference for the area, then that reference needs a separate column, so that the sort is not broken.

The template would have to take this into account. Thoughts? Help? -- BsBsBs (talk) 02:56, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

More housekeeping - templates no working.

I built a macro that calculates the population density and also makes overall editing easier. It also lends itself more for machine-generation from a database. However, I have two problems, a big one and a small one:

Big problem: For some reason, the table shows at the bottom of the page. Can't figure out why. Will need to play in the sandbox for a while.

Small problem: Some entries in the rows are vertical aligned top, some are vertical aligned center. The template does no aligning.

If some who know what they are doing could help, it would be appreciated. The density numbers were all over the place. People don't seem to manually recalculate them. The area rarely changes (unless its wrong , also happened) but the density changes with the population. That was the idea of the template. Please keep the editing at a minimum until this is solved, the data migration is a lot of work. Thanks -- 19:20, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Name change

As per previous talk, and considering the lack of consensus over a single coherent definition for the cities listed (in most of this talk-page sections), I propose changing the name of this article to "List of undivided administrative divisions by population", because this is what it is right now. Salut, --IANVS (talk | cont) 19:58, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

(Alternative names for a change: "List of smallest administrative divisions by population"/"List of Municipalities by populations") --IANVS (talk | cont) 21:43, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

• Against - This article does NOT have to provide a definition of "City." The definition of "City" is in City. City explains that "city" can take on many meanings throughout the world. The definition of "Municipality" is in Municipality. The definition of "city proper" is in city proper, and with a reference in the intro. IANVS has not provided any workable alternatives. "Undivided divisions" is patent nonsense. -- BsBsBs (talk) 21:26, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Comment Municipality of China and City#China have no verifiable reliable sources for the main definitions for the "City" concept. Furthermore, a Municipality is an administrative entity, but not necessarily equals a "City", as you yourself have pointed out in other thread. Finally, there is no definition for city proper in the pertaining article, as it redirects to city limits, which is clearly not the same thing.

Conclusion: I don't see any reasons to consider some municipalities as cities, nor there are WP:VERIFIABLE WP:RS to support that the Municipalities of China should be considered cities. I insist on name changing. Salut, --IANVS (talk | cont) 21:43, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

If you have problems with Municipality of China, then you have to take your gripes there, and not disrupt the work here. Apparently, you have issues witch China. I don't have to do this, but because I'm in a good mood. here we go. (You could have done this yourself ...) Your guide to counties, Cities and provinces in China. (If your computer doesn't do Chinese characters, tough.)

• Municipalities directly under central government (直辖市 zhíxiáshì)= Noun. "Directly governed city region (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing)"
• Prefecture-level municipalities/cities (地级市 dìjíshì)= Noun. "Prefecture-level city"

Can I go to bed now? And where do I send the bill? -- BsBsBs (talk) 22:16, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

1. http://english.wh.gov.cn/html/Introduction/20070926/278.html
2. Cite error: The named reference 3218.0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

• Redirect-Class WikiProject Cities pages
• All WikiProject Cities pages