The Great Towns of the World.

Thames Star, Volume xv, Issue 4767, 19 April 1884, Page 1

The Great Towns of the World.

London, the largest town in the world, has a population of three millions and abalf. The second town ia Paris, which has about two millions, and then comes the cities of Canton and Hankow, in China, with populations of a million and a-half each. ISevr York is the fifth town in point of size, its population being 1,206,229. Berlin comes next with 4,119,000 inhabitants ; then Vienna, with 1,050,000; and Tokio, in Japan, with 1,037,000. Singon-fu and Siangtan-fu, in China, follow with populations of a million each; and these complete the list of towns in the entire world having a millioD or more inhabitants, the number of such towns being ten. The eleventh largest town is Tientsin, in China, its population being 920,000, and the twelfth is Philapelphia, the population of which is 847,170.

China has two towns of 800,000 each, which form the thirteenth and fourteenth largest towns, and then comes Calcutta with 790,223 inhabitants. Bombay, with 773.196 inhabitants, is the sixteenth town, and the seventeenth to the nineteenth are in China. Manchester, including Salford, has a population of 569,909, which makes it the twentieth town in the world. Then comes Brooklyn, with 566.663 inhabitants, and then Liverpool, with 552,425. There are eight other towns in the world with a dopulation of half»a-million each. Six of these are in China, one (Chicago) is iv America, and one (Bang Kok) in Siam.

The distribution of tbe large towns is a fair indication of the locality of civilisation. Where there is barbarism there is an ab« sence of large towns ; where there is semicivilisation the large towns are few; and where civilisation flourishes, the number of large towns in proportion to the population is considerable. China has a greater number of towns over 100,000 inhabitants than any other country, the number of such towns in that empire being forty-one. Great Britain comes next in order, having twenty-five o such towns. But the twenty* five towns in Great Britain are a much larger number in proportion to the population than the forty-one towns are to the population of China, the number of inhabitants of China proper being about twelve times the number of inhabitants of Great Britain. », • In China there are 350,000,000 people, while Great Britain has only about 30,000,000, India is third on the list of countries having the greatest number of towns of above 100,000 inhobitants. She has twenty-one, a small number in proportion to her population, which is 250,000,000, or more than eight times that of Great Britain. This bears out the theory that civilisation and large towns go together, for the greater part of the semicivilised races that inhabit India are distributed in towns of from 5000 to 10,000 inhabitants. r .

In the Duited States there are twenty towns of more than 100,000 inhabitants, which is a remarkable proof of the energy and progress of that great country. The total population of the United States'iis 50,000,000, just one fifth of that of India, yet she has as many large towns within one. Germany, which is the next in order after the United States, can only boast of twelve towns of 100.000 inhabitants and upwards ; and France which is the next, has only nine. Both these countries have about 10,000,000 inhabitants more than Great Britain. Italy has seven towns of more than 100,0000 inhabitants; Russia has seven; Japan has five; Spain, Belgium, and Austria, four each; Turkey, which in Europe and Asia has a population of 25,000,000, possesses only three of such towns, Constantinople, - Smyrna, and Damascus ; Holland has three ; Portugal has two; Ireland two; Sweden, one; and Denmark one.

Of the four continents, Europe has the greatest^number of such towns, the number being 82. Next comes Asia, with 71 of such towns, and then America with 29, of which 21 are in the northern half and eight in the southern half of the continent. Africa, which baa a total esti-

mammmmmtmmmmmmKaaammmammmmummmmmmmmmm "mated population of 206,000,000, has only 5 towns of more than 100,000 inhabitants. These are Cairo and Alexandria in Egypt, Tunis in the country of the same name, Fez in Morocco, and Antananarivo in Madagascar. The only town in Australia of more than 100,000 inhabitants is Melbourne, and New Zealand has no such town. As a rule the capital of a country is the most populous town in if, but there are two notable exceptions—Washington, the capital of the United States, the population of which is only 147,000, or less than one-eighth of that of New York, and Rome, the capital of Italy, which has only 220,000 inhabitants, while Naples has 416,000. London is the largest capital in the civilised world, and Athens, the eiffital.; of Greece, is the smallest, the population of the latter city being only 50,060.^-Exchange.'