It is small where I live. We are out in the country, in the farmland, but our address is listed as “Camden” even though we do not live in the village of Camden. There, in that village, about 1,989 people, give or take a few. I don’t know too many of them.
I enjoy living in a larger city. I’ve done it a few times in my life, including Dayton, Ohio, Indianapolis, Indiana, and Charleston, South Carolina. In that order.
But while these are much bigger than Camden, they do not compare with the biggest cities in Americas. It made me wonder what the top 25 cities were by population.
So I looked. I found out that the 25 biggest cities in the Americas are based on how many people live within the city limits of each city however that is defined by each country.
Cities Ranked by Population (Largest to Smallest)
1. São Paulo, Brazil: 12.3M
2. Lima, Peru: 9.7M
3. Mexico City, Mexico: 9.2M
4. New York, USA: 8.5M
5. Bogotá, Colombia: 7.6M
6. Santiago, Chile: 6.8M
7. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: 6.7M
8. Los Angeles, USA: 3.8M
9. Brasília, Brazil: 3.0M
10. Guatemala City, Guatemala: 2.9M
11. Salvador, Brazil: 2.9M
12. Buenos Aires, Argentina: 2.8M
13. Chicago, USA: 2.7M
14. Toronto, Canada: 2.7M
15. Fortaleza, Brazil: 2.7M
16. Cali, Colombia: 2.3M
17. Belo Horizonte, Brazil: 2.5M
18. Medellín, Colombia: 2.5M
19. Houston, USA: 2.3M
20. Manaus, Brazil: 2.2M
21. Quito, Ecuador: 2.0M
22. Havana, Cuba: 2.1M
23. Guayaquil, Ecuador: 1.9M
24. Curitiba, Brazil: 1.9M
25. Tijuana, Mexico: 1.9M
26. Caracas, Venezuela: 1.9M
And here are the top 25 cities in the United States, based on the same figuring.
Again, this is strictly the population within the official city limits. The results would be different for metropolitan areas.
1. New York City — 8.5 million
2. Los Angeles — 3.8 million
3. Chicago — 2.7 million
4. Houston — 2.3 million
5. Phoenix — 1.7 million
6. Philadelphia — 1.6 million
7. San Antonio — 1.5 million
8. San Diego — 1.4 million
9. Dallas — 1.3 million
10. Jacksonville — 1.0 million
11. Austin — 1.0 million
12. Fort Worth — 1.0 million
13. San Jose — 980,000
14. Columbus — 930,000
15. Charlotte — 920,000
16. Indianapolis — 890,000
17. Seattle — 780,000
18. Denver — 730,000
19. Oklahoma City — 720,000
20. Washington — 700,000
21. Boston — 680,000
22. El Paso — 680,000
23. Nashville — 670,000
24. Detroit — 640,000
25. Portland — 635,000
And here are a few interesting things about all of this.
– Jacksonville ranks surprisingly high because its city limits cover a huge area.
– Columbus is the largest city in Ohio by population, well ahead of Cleveland and Cincinnati.
– Rankings can shift slightly from year to year as Census estimates are updated, but the top ten have remained fairly stable.
As I mentioned above, for comparison, if we ranked these by metropolitan area population, cities such as Atlanta, Miami, and Washington would climb much higher because their surrounding suburbs contain millions more residents. The sprawl.
Did anything surprise you about this?
I was surprised that I had not visited a single one of the foreign big cities. The United States was a different story.
And my story remains the same. Here I am in little Camden. Population small. And that is fine.
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“There’s no town too small for thinking big.” — Doris ‘Granny D’ Haddock
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“A city is not measured by its length and width, but by the broadness of its vision and the height of its dreams.” — Herb Caen
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“The world is full of wonderful places. Some have millions of people. Some have two thousand. Wonder is not measured by population.” — Joe Fernandez
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“Whether we live among millions or among hundreds, home is still the place where our story unfolds.” — Alexander Wilson
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