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1st post-Roman European city of a million people

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Constantine XI View Drop Down
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  Quote Constantine XI Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: 1st post-Roman European city of a million people
    Posted: 09-Aug-2007 at 10:07
The city of Rome reached a million people in the census of 138 BC, the first time a European city had ever done so. After the fall of Rome, a decline in urban population occured throughout the Empire and in Rome itself. Constantinople reached about 750,000 people at its zenith, but this isn't quite a million.

When was it that a European city once again was able to boast a million inhabitants?
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Aug-2007 at 10:20
Cordaba? Paris? Rome itself?
Honestly, no clue.
 
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  Quote Patch Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Aug-2007 at 10:49
London was the first European city to reach a million since the fall of the WRE and that wasn't until the early c19th.
 
I will never cease to be amazed by the scale of the population decline after the fall of the WRE and the enormous length of time before western Europe's population recovered.
 
 
 
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  Quote Aster Thrax Eupator Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Aug-2007 at 03:51
Surely constantinople after the conquest of the Turks in 1453 is one to consider? I mean, the huge influx of not only Turks but many other Muslims into this vast city must have done something drastic to it's numbers.
 
Another one that I would consider would be the Holy Roman empire under the early years (Theodoric, Charglemane). It was one of the main areas of power in the early middle ages world and probably encouraged a huge amount of migrations
 
...There's also Baghdad under the Abbasid Caliphate - Harun Al-Rashid in particular
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  Quote Constantine XI Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Aug-2007 at 05:27
Aster, Constantinople was only 30,000 people strong at the time of the conquest, probably several thousand less once the casualties from the siege are accounted for. It would have taken considerable time for it to build up to a million.

I am pretty confident that no Dark Age urban centres were able to support a concentration of a million people, except for a few in China.

Baghdad was magnificent in its heyday. However, it is not a European city. Any one have any more ideas on when and where we have a million people at one time living together after the fall of Rome?
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Aug-2007 at 06:11

Cordaba? Thats the closest I can think off. Any clue how many lived there.

 

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  Quote Aster Thrax Eupator Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Aug-2007 at 06:13
Aster, Constantinople was only 30,000 people strong at the time of the conquest, probably several thousand less once the casualties from the siege are accounted for. It would have taken considerable time for it to build up to a million.
 
Okay, fair enough- but what about in it's heyday? Suleman the Magnificent? Selim the Grim and Sultan Ahmed? It must have been close to a million (including Genoese and Ventetian areas) then?
 
...As for the rest of the million, I would reckon that, in retrospect, you would have to wait until the enlightenment, when urban developed had advanced to a level where it could sustain such huge numbers. Perhaps 1600s Paris or London (more likely) are eligable candidates?
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Aug-2007 at 06:57

Okay Codova was around 450,000, in 1000 AD.

http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa011201c.htm

I would say the best candidate is London.
 
Also the defination of what is a city also matter, are the surrounding towns whose entire existance is dependent on the city coutned?
 
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  Quote Aster Thrax Eupator Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Aug-2007 at 08:44

Well, look at Athens of the Tyrants (slightly out of our sphere of discussion...)! "Athens" and indeed the whole concept of the Greek "Polis"  did not just mean city, but the whole state.

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  Quote omshanti Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Aug-2007 at 09:09
Wow, so hard to find a city with a million people in it. It is kind of unbelievable with the population standards of today. The earth must have been a much nicer place. Considering all this, the city of Rome reaching a million people in 138 BC is remarkable.
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  Quote Aster Thrax Eupator Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Aug-2007 at 09:17
Well, Rome in the period of the antionine or adoptive emperors is supposed to have been the most peaceful and prosperous period for the western world EVER
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Aug-2007 at 09:22

I think Gibbon was being too kind. Just ask the Persians.

Also the world population tends to fluctuate and todays cities are pretty much the size of states today. Also urbanisation is a huge fact of life.
 
Just wait till the next war.
 
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  Quote Aster Thrax Eupator Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Aug-2007 at 13:13
todays cities are pretty much the size of states today
 
Yeah, apparently London is now bigger than the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia.
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  Quote Justinian Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Oct-2007 at 04:36
I think Paris reached the million mark in the ~early-mid 19th century.  I think it was something like 600,000 to 750,000 at the time of the revolution.
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  Quote Omar al Hashim Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Oct-2007 at 07:31
Originally posted by Constantine

Aster, Constantinople was only 30,000 people strong at the time of the conquest, probably several thousand less once the casualties from the siege are accounted for. It would have taken considerable time for it to build up to a million.

The ottoman sultans invested alot of time and money rebuilding Constantinople after they took it. Mehmed II himself used bribery, concessions, and forced movements to increase the population of the city, and pretty well succeeded. I think istanbul had recovered to about 100,000 by Mehmed II death.
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Oct-2007 at 08:47
Originally posted by Justinian

I think Paris reached the million mark in the ~early-mid 19th century.  I think it was something like 600,000 to 750,000 at the time of the revolution.
 
Paris had quite a boom during the Restoration:
 
1800 - 550 000
1850 - 1 050 000
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  Quote Maharbbal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Oct-2007 at 19:59
The point is less when did London (first) and Paris (second) reached the million point then how did they do it? Other cities such as Cordoba or Bagdad were somewhat more suburb-ish. Few buildings were more than two stories high. "New cities" were commonly created. In the mean time Naples and Paris commonly had five to six floors.

The cities of the time faced three major issues:
- Where to get the food and other supplies from?
- As one can't leave more than 1 to 2 hours from her work that limits the size of a city (ie 4 to 6 km wide as you have to account for congestion and tricky street system).
- As more people died than were born in cities, the countryside has to "produced" more people.

Even more problematic what brought increasingly more people in cities?
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  Quote dexippus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Oct-2007 at 19:53
18th century London
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  Quote Epaminondas Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Feb-2008 at 13:57
I'm not certain, but I have heard, that in China were cities, where lived over million inhabitants. This is quite possible, when we are watching overall population in China.
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