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The Big City
Question by Ethan Gelber

The Question:

What would the ancient Egyptians, reclining by the Nile and sipping an early form of honey-sweetened beer, think of urban development today? Many experts agree that Memphis (Egypt), now in ruins south of Cairo but once capital of the extensive pharaonic holdings, was the first great city of the world with a significant number of inhabitants. At some point during the third millennium B.C., its population actually passed 20,000. Today, Japan's Tokyo-Yokahama agglomeration ranks as the most populous metropolitan area. Thirty million people! It was also the first place to surpass 20,000,000 back in 1965. From 20,000 to 20,000,000 in about 4,200 years!

But there were other thresholds passed along the way. For instance, Babylon was the first city to reach 200,000 inhabitants (in 612 B.C.) and New York City the first to reach 10,000,000 (in 1925).

Which of our world's cities was the first to reach 1,000,000 inhabitants?

The Answers:

The very first city ever to have a population of greater than one million people was Rome. Less than fifty years after the change of era (what we today see as the moment of transition between B.C. and A.D.), Rome, then capital of the Roman Empire, was the largest city in the world. However, perhaps by the middle of the fourth century A.D. and certainly before the fifth-century fall of the Roman Empire, Constantinople grew to proportions greater than those of Rome, which had long before dipped below the 1,000,000 citizens mark.

It was not again until the early 19th century — more than 15 centuries later — that another city saw its population increase to beyond one million people. This was London, England, which, by 1825, had even surpassed 5,000,000!

The Winners:

First of all, thank you for the many, many responses to this question.

The first five responses we had to this question came from Jeffrey Lonard, Patrick Patin, Gerald Kessler, Tom Draper, and Suesdogs, all winners of the promised bag of GORP.com GORP.

Honorable mention goes to RFOstrow, Tennesseejed10, Molly Brunner, and Brig for providing the correct answer but not in time to beat the swift fingers of our five winners.

Special mention also goes to Sturmd, Gaetano Auricchio, Lauralei34, Dan Moutal, Ed Berkowitz, Angelo Sciulli, Ronald St. James, R McCrossan, Trina Burke, Cheryl, Pat O'Connell, Dennis Schmitt, and Brian Cadet Bartlett for guessing London. While London was the first city in the modern era to claim 1,000,000 inhabitants, Rome still stands as the first ever. Other guesses of Calcutta, New York, Paris, Mexico City, New Delhi, Hong Kong, Athens, Shanghai, Beijing, Bombay, and Jerusalem were very good, but, alas, history has its own way of working and the coveted first-city honor has evaded them forever.

THANKS for your contributions!