
Bar chart race: the most populous cities in the world - jonbaer
https://observablehq.com/@johnburnmurdoch/bar-chart-race-the-most-populous-cities-in-the-world
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EB66
Fun video, but at least towards the end the population numbers don't seem
terribly accurate. The video counts the population for the greater metro area
of a given city (e.g., 38 mil for Tokyo), but there's no mention of Seoul. The
population for the Seoul metro is 25+ million, NYC metro is 20+ million,
Moscow metro is 20+ million, etc.

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guelo
Looking at the data source[1] it only has Seoul data until 1991 and it is
10.463 million.

[1]
[https://gist.githubusercontent.com/johnburnmurdoch/4199dbe55...](https://gist.githubusercontent.com/johnburnmurdoch/4199dbe55095c3e13de8d5b2e5e5307a/raw/fa018b25c24b7b5f47fd0568937ff6c04e384786/city_populations)

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tzs
Where's Tenochtitlan? Low estimates are around 200k population before the
Spanish came, which is above several other cities listed at the start of the
chart race.

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jpatokal
Cute visualization, but the data is sketchy and handling of modern
megalopolises is really inconsistent. If greater Tokyo is currently in the top
spot at 38M, then greater Shanghai and greater Jakarta (Jabodetabek) should be
#2 and #3.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_by_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_by_population)

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samstave
Calling a slight BS:

Tokyo was and other cities were firebombed to HELL in 1945. And ~~MILLIONS~~
(war-winners-numbers state 330,000 - but I suspect that number is not
accurate, see: MacNamera's comments) were killed in the razing of tokyo and
other japanese cities during WWII and not a single frame in that video shows a
drop-back in population during WWII years.

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trynumber9
it is spelt McNamara

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Jun8
Interesting to compare with large cities in ancient history
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_through...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_throughout_history)),
e.g. if we did the graphics for 3500BC - 2800BC, Uruk would be have been
continually number 1.

Sad thing is that, except for a few, many of these cities are gone: "Look on
my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

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RcouF1uZ4gsC
Looking at the population of London, the effects of the Industrial Revolution
become immediately apparent.

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jashkenas
This is a Guardian repost of a Financial Times video of a graphic by John
Burn-Murdoch.

You can watch (and tinker with, or fork) the original here:
[https://observablehq.com/@johnburnmurdoch/bar-chart-race-
the...](https://observablehq.com/@johnburnmurdoch/bar-chart-race-the-most-
populous-cities-in-the-world)

Since last week, folks have forked and published a whole bunch of fun
versions, applying the form to different data sets:
[https://observablehq.com/search?query=Bar%20chart%20race](https://observablehq.com/search?query=Bar%20chart%20race)

Some of my favorites are the baseball home run leaders (1), NFL receiving
yards leaders (2), and global CO2 emissions leaders (3)...

1\. [https://observablehq.com/@darenwillman/bar-chart-
race](https://observablehq.com/@darenwillman/bar-chart-race)

2\. [https://observablehq.com/@stu/bar-chart-race-nfl-
receiving-y...](https://observablehq.com/@stu/bar-chart-race-nfl-receiving-
yard-leaders)

3\. [https://observablehq.com/@drsimevans/bar-chart-race-the-
coun...](https://observablehq.com/@drsimevans/bar-chart-race-the-countries-
with-the-largest-co2-emissions)

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sctb
Thanks, we've updated the link from
[https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/mar/21/500-years-
in-...](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/mar/21/500-years-
in-59-seconds-the-race-to-be-the-worlds-largest-city).

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ghouse
And here is where it came from:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/b2fybb/ani...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/b2fybb/animation_the_10_biggest_cities_in_the_world/)

~~~
shereadsthenews
No, this is were it came from: [https://observablehq.com/@johnburnmurdoch/bar-
chart-race-the...](https://observablehq.com/@johnburnmurdoch/bar-chart-race-
the-most-populous-cities-in-the-world)

