Bar chart race: the most populous cities through time

Watch the race to be the most populous city on earth, from 1500 to the present day. The FT's John Burn-Murdoch looks at how populations have shifted over time and how the emerging markets have come to dominate

[josephbreckenridge]

Both the animation and the narration was GREAT! This can be such a great medium for getting an intuitive grasp of some huge data set. These are not just fascinating graphics, they are useful. Thank you for your work.

[mwnyc]

If this thing is going to start in 1500, it needs to include Tenochtitlan, which had more than 200, 000 when Cortez got there.

[anwinthomask]

Kudos to John Murdoch. It's simply amazing. The presentation is so accurate and explained in an easily understandable way. Best wishes from India. Keep making more of them. Thanks :)

[frenchwall]

The Americas were not “barely populated” in 1500! What a stunningly inaccurate claim

[ixchel]

Tenochtitlan (the Aztec nucleus of Mexico City) probably had 215-275K in 1500, putting it at #4-6; falling to 200-250K in 1519 when Cortez arrived, putting it at #6-7; then rapidly falling off the list after that. I suspect they didn't include it in the chart because those credible intervals are so wide.

[adilhazzan]

Vijayanagari is beautiful planned city

[blackopal]

In the last hundred years NY and Paris more than doubled, while London has basically stayed the same. London's pop has not increased in 140 or so years, I find that amazing. peace

[fidenemini]

1:24 London "bye bitches"
1:50 Tokyo "hold my beer"

[actartcrafttechnology]

Hi Sir..where we have to use this code D3.js or any other?

[RPDBY]

Gorgeous graph. I would have been even happier had you done it in R and posted the code.

[hrishitabhattacharya]

Let's take a moment to thank the person who programmed this....MARVELLOUS

[nirupamakumar]

This wrong. Where are the cities of Delhi 650, 000, Agra 850, 000, Lahore 750, 000, Dhaka 1, 000, 000, Ahmedabad 500, 000 from 1600 to 1700. These were estimates given by Mughal historians at the time and Vijayanagar was at its peak at 1508 with the reign of Emperor Krishna Devaraya so how could its population have been declining.

[trishmcdonough]

Surprised there isn't a noticeable decrease in the population of London in 1665/6 when a 1/4 of the population were wiped out by the Great Plague. I guess the recovery must have been such that it wasn't in the dataset.

[papi]

great chart, more of these please ...possibly no need for the narrative, more effective without

[rankthemall]

Those on and millions those that thousands

[dipakacharyapl]

wrong data mumbai is bigger than delhi.

[pareekshithnaik]

What is unfortunate is that Colonialism wasn't mentioned once. Industrial revolution was funded by Colonialism. Please narrate history as it is.

[JamieCYW]

And guess which religion destroyed Vijayanagar?



The religion of “peace”

[williamyin]

Try earlier. Xi’an, China was the first city in the whole world to surpass 1million in population.

[BadassBikerOwns]

The cause for Vijayanagara city's complete destruction? - You guessed it, credits to the Muslim Sultanates and their peaceful ideology.