On the long drive across the Nullarbor, I often wondered why many Americans have only heard of one city in Australia: Sydney.
And that got me thinking: how big are Australian cities in comparison to American cities?
So, here in ranked order, is the combined list of US and Australian cities with their populations. US data is from 1998, and Australian is from 1996, but the list still gives a good indication of relative size.
Mind that the US data is defined on city limits, so some 'small' American cities that are really tiny in real estate don't show up, like Atlanta, Miami, and Denver. But those are more the exception than the rule.
New York 7,420,166
Los Angeles 3,597,556
Sydney 3,276,207
Melbourne 2,865,329
Chicago 2,802,079
Houston 1,786,691
Philadelphia 1,436,287
Brisbane 1,291,117
San Diego 1,220,666
Phoenix 1,198,064
San Antonio 1,114,130
Perth 1,096,829
Dallas 1,075,894
Adelaide 978,100
Detroit 970,196
San Jose 861,284
Indianapolis 745,774
San Francisco 741,304
Jacksonville 693,630
Columbus 670,234
Baltimore 645,593
El Paso 615,032
Boston 555,447
Seattle 536,978
Washington, DC 523,124
Comments
From the US Census, somewhere on www.census.gov, and the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Australia cities don't use the same definition of city as the US; the proper City of Sydney, for instance, is very small and doesn't even include Oxford Street. But it was good enough. I just wanted to look at cities that had more than half a million people.
Canada was even more difficult, so I left it out. Vancouver is smallish as well; its total don't include Richmond, for instance. I couldn't figure out Toronto either. Do I add in the half a million folks in Missisauga or however you spell that? What about the recent amalgation? At least Montreal was clear.
It'd be more accurate to do metropolitan areas, but that's painful--are Los Angeles/Orange County one city or two--or what about San Bernardino-Riverside, does that make four cities? That's important, Southern California has roughly the same population as Australia. How about Dallas-Fort Worth? Even my numbers about NYC are a bit mixed, as they add all five boroughs (Queens is the largest, by the way).
Mississauga :P
No, Toronto doesn't include Mississauga. But if you did include the Golden Horseshoe (which includes Hamilton and Niagara) then you get a number close to 6 or 7 million. :)
Toronto includes: North York, East York, Etobicoke, Scarborough, Toronto and I think thats it.. I may be missing one more municipality. Which in turn were made up of smaller towns. You sometimes hear of Willowdale and other places within North York, East York, etc.. Toronto is pretty clear when you know the area. :)
For Vancouver - Richmond, Surrey, White Rock, etc are all on their own right now.
Hamitlon was recently amalgamated, as I think Ottawa may have been. Hamilton is now a rather HUGE area including Dundas, Ancaster, Hamilton, and an area as far north as Freelton. AIEE.
More info: the U.S. year 2000 metro area populations are listed at http://www.census.gov/population/www/cen2000/phc-t3.html -- but the table at this URL is what you're after: http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t3/tab03.txt
The ABS site at www.abs.gov.au is a pain to navigate and find stuff, but I found info from the 1996 census there.
It's cool that you posted the population figures because I was wondering where Toronto fit into the scheme of things. I used to think Toronto had grown to 3 million but the signs on the 401 and QEW say only 2.3 to 2.5 million leaving Toronto just below Chicago.
Curious given that Australia has 18 million people where Canada has 30 million. If you look at it though, Australia has what? 7 major cites in the states and territories (Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, Darwin) - mainly counting all the capitals. Canada has 15 major cities and capitals (Vancouver [1m], Edmonton[800k], Calgary[1m], Regina [not sure], Winnipeg [not sure], Toronto [2.3m], Ottawa [not sure if they amalgamated or not 300k to 1m], Hamilton [500k], Montreal [1.6 to 2m?], Quebec City, Halifax, Moncton [small], Charlottetown [quite small], St. John's, Yellowknife), hence the population in Canada is more spread out.
I'm surprised at the numbers for DC, SFO, BOS. I guess you have to take into account that they have huge areas of population around them, but they're not merged cities.
Where do you get the information from?