In relation to comparable US Cities, just how big is Baghdad, Iraq?
Population, Area, etc. Is it about the same size as Houston or Seattle, Boston, etc.?
Inquiring Mimes want to know.
Bagdad’s population is 4.5 to 5 million
It is approximately 150 square miles
In population that is bigger than LA smaller than NY
(Population is circa Chicago + Houston maybe)
In square mile size a little bigger than the US cities Philly or Motown.
Pop SQR mi
1 New York city, NY … 8.04Mil 308.9
2 Los Angeles city, CA… 3. 785 mil 469.3
3 Chicago city, IL… 2.9mil 227.2
4 Houston city, TX… 1.6 mil 539.9
5 Philadelphia city, PA… 1.5 mil 135.1
6 San Diego city, CA … 1,110,549 324.0
7 Detroit city, MI… 1,027,974 138.7
8 Dallas city, TX… 1,006,877 342.4
Even Preview didn’t save me. 1st column is pop in 2000 2nd is square miles
That’s a lot of people per square mile!
Accirding to the BBC, which showed a satellite picture of it recently (comparing it with London and New York), it is about the size of New York and has about 5 million people living there.
According to CNN, it’s about the size of Chicago.
Don’t forget that in the U.S. the population size that counts is that of the metropolitan area, not the central city.
According to the census bureau 1999 estimates, the areas close to 5 million are:
MSA = metropolitan statistical area.
Boston-Worcester-Lawrence, MA-NH-ME-CT CMSA… 5,667,225
Dallas-Fort Worth, TX CMSA… 4,909,523
Detroit, MI PMSA… 4,474,614
Houston-Galveston-Brazoria, TX CMSA… 4,493,741
Philadelphia, PA-NJ PMSA… 4,949,867
Washington, DC-MD-VA-WV PMSA… 4,739,999
These are 1999 figures, but this table breaks down larger conglomerations in a way that makes for better comparisons.
The 2000 overall rankings are available here.
IIRC, Los Angeles County (not City) has about 9.5 million inhabitants.
Okay, after a quick google search: http://www.laavenue.com/Laataglance.htm
Total in Los Angeles County: 9,802,800
Pop. of largest city (Los Angeles): 3,802,700
Land area: 4,081.58 square miles
Considering that Iraq has only 23-25 million people, I am suprised it can support a city of 6 million (and two or three other cities that have over a million people) - and after all, isn’t Iraq still mostly agricultural - aside from the oil business?
I can’t think of many countries that small with cities that large.
syncrolecyne, most of the people in the world live in urban settings these days. According to your numbers, about 2/5 of Iraqis live in the four biggest cities. This breakdown makes Iraq a rather rural society. Let’s compare Iraq to California, a state of about the same geographic size. 34 million people live in California. If you look at the four biggest metro areas in California, 17 million live in greater L.A., 7 million in greater S.F., 3 million in greater S.D., and 2 million in greater Sacramento. That makes it about 6/7 of Californians living in the 4 biggest cities, and this from a state that has a monsterous agricultural industry.
Another example to look at is Canada. Canada has 30 million people, and it’s biggest city, Toronto, is about as big as Baghdad. But the next two biggest cities, Montreal and Vancouver, both have 2-3 million people. They’re much bigger than the second and third biggest cities in Iraq. In fact, about 2/5 of all Canadians live along the Windsor-Toronto-Montreal corridor (including me!). And all of this in a country much bigger than the entire Middle East, giving it plenty of room for anyone wanting a rural existence.
syncrolecyne what about Mexico? It’s not that large of a country, and Mexico city almost has same amount of people living there as there is in my whole country!
MtM