Quote:
Originally Posted by Yuri
Paris was larger, Tokyo maybe. If Chicago is Cook+DuPage, than it's a bit smaller than Berlin; if it's only Cook, than Berlin is a bit larger.
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I think by 1940 Tokyo had briefly become the world's largest city (though unofficial, it still only counted city proper rather than the contiguous urban area), overtaking NYC and London. But then WWII, and the bit where it became the most destroyed tract of urbanity ever.
Tokyo-Yokohama was 12.74 million by 1940 (city proper was half that at 6.36 million):
http://demographia.com/db-tok1920.htm
New York urban area was 10.8 million that same year (city proper 7.45 million)
http://demographia.com/db-nyuza1800.htm
London was high too. In 1900 alone its metro was 9 million and city proper 5 million, forty years before the war and in 1/3 the size of today. Anyhoo, in 1939 just before the mass evacuation of children, the city proper was 8.6 million which made it officially the world's largest pre-war city. In terms of contiguous city however I don't know, but I don't think larger than Tokyo.
https://www.digitalpanopticon.org/London,_1780-1900