Great Cities Compared

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 36, 7 September 1905, Page 27

Great Cities Compared

The following particulars of the population anil area of (the -mine largest cities in the worlid will be found of interest :— London may mean the city of London, which comprises only 673 acres, or it may mean the administrative county of London, which boasts nearly 117 square miles, or 74,839 acres ; or Greater London, which embraces the metropolitan police district, and has an area of no less than 692 square miles, or 442,420 acres. Within the t^oundaries of the county of London there were 4,536,541' souls, Injng in 616,461 houses. 'Within this area must also be counted 12,054 acres of grass, including the public parka and gardens. In the greater London are 6,580,000 inhabitants, and the area forms a city far more homogeneous and compact than Greater Chicago or Greater New York. Greater New York covers 307 square miles, with a population of 3,437,202. It has 6,766 acres of parks and open spaces, little more than half that of London ; yet the proportion of unoccupied land not under control of the city is, of course, many times as great., The actual agglomeration of buildings in Greater New York— excluding Staten Island— covers barely 51,000 acres, or 80 square miles. Less than 5000 acres of Staten Island's 57.19 miles is built upon. Paris has an area of a little more than thirty-one square miles, with a population of 2,700,000, living in 75,000 houses. This is within the ramparts, but if the actual agglomeration of houses be taken, including the suburbs, the area is 45 square miles, and piopukutikm 3,600,000. Berlin, a mere village a century ago, is now the third city in Europe and the foairth in the world in point of population, having 1,857,000 inhabitants in itsi 45 square miles of territory. Its actual increase from 1800 to 1900 was 818 per cent. There is an enormous suburban district clamoring to be annexed, and with this adided to the population of the present city, the total of inhabitants is about 2,430,000. Chicago is spread out over 1903 miles, with 1,698,575 inhabitants, but only about 70 square miles of this territory is improved, and less than 50 miles built upon. It has 2232 acres of parks and open spaces. Vienna, 'enlarged in 1891 by the addition of 50 suburbs outside the second girdle of fortjificatiotis, has new 1,662,269 inhabitants in 69 square miles of territory. She is now reaching out for the adjoining town of Floridsdorf, across the river Danube, 'and four other towns, with a total population of 50,000 more. More tharti fiveeijifhtihs of Vienna arc woods, pastuies, and vineyards, while more than one-tenth is parks, gardens, and squares.' St. Petersburg covers an area of 21,185 acres, )of which 12,820 are part of the delta of the river Neva and 1330 acres are submerged. The population is now 1,248,739, with 190,635 in the suburbs. Peking and Boston have afrout the same DopuJation 1,000,000. The former is a walled city and contains an area of about 30 scjiare miles. The large area in comparison with the population is accounted for by the enormous space taken up by the imperial palaces and gargardens. The area of Boston is 24,000 acres, of which 2308 are common open spaces and 126 acres, ponds, and rivers. Boston is reaching out for the suburbs within a radius of 10 miles of her city hall, which would give her a population of about 1,250,000.