--- title: Cities then and now: the biggest cities of every age and of today — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Cities then and now: the biggest cities of every age and of today», a lesson of the history course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Today the answer depends on where you draw the city's edge: a 2025 UN report put Jakarta first, Dhaka se --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/74-the-biggest-cities-of-every-age-and-of-today/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/) / Cities then and now: the biggest citie… # Cities then and now: the biggest cities of every age and of today Lesson 74 of the history course of Mova's primary school: 14 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/history/74-the-biggest-cities-of-every-age-and-of-today/). - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/74-the-biggest-cities-of-every-age-and-of-today/1/) — Today the answer depends on where you draw the city's edge: a 2025 UN report put Jakarta first, Dhaka second and Tokyo third, while older lists put Tokyo on top, so three friends can each be right by a different rule. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/74-the-biggest-cities-of-every-age-and-of-today/2/) — Cities of more than 10 million people are called megacities; there are now more than 30, most of them in Asia, Africa and Latin America, and Lagos and Kinshasa are among the fastest growing on Earth. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/74-the-biggest-cities-of-every-age-and-of-today/3/) — The past had big cities that outsiders forgot: Cahokia, by the Mississippi, was about as big as London around 1100, and Angkor in Cambodia was never really «lost», since monks and local people kept using its great temple. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/74-the-biggest-cities-of-every-age-and-of-today/4/) — In a strategy game a city is a dot with a number; in real life it is millions of people who need homes, water, food from far-away farms and a way to get to work. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/74-the-biggest-cities-of-every-age-and-of-today/5/) — The world's biggest city has changed many times: from Mesopotamian cities like Uruk, to Rome, to Chinese cities like Chang'an, to Baghdad, to Beijing, to London from about 1825 to 1925, then to New York and later Tokyo. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/74-the-biggest-cities-of-every-age-and-of-today/7/) — Cities of more than 10 million people are called megacities, and there are now more than 30 of them. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/74-the-biggest-cities-of-every-age-and-of-today/9/) — About a billion people live in informal settlements, often called slums, mostly because cities grow faster than proper homes, pipes and roads can be built. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/74-the-biggest-cities-of-every-age-and-of-today/10/) — The first skyscraper, built in Chicago in 1885, had about 10 floors; the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, opened in 2010, is 828 metres tall. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/74-the-biggest-cities-of-every-age-and-of-today/11/) — Tall buildings became possible with steel frames and with safe lifts, shown by Elisha Otis in the 1850s, which stop the lift falling if a cable breaks. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/74-the-biggest-cities-of-every-age-and-of-today/12/) — Angkor in Cambodia was never fully lost: monks and local people kept using Angkor Wat, and French visitors in the 1800s made it famous in Europe. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/74-the-biggest-cities-of-every-age-and-of-today/13/) — Cahokia, near today's St Louis in the USA, was built by Mississippian people and had perhaps 10,000 to 20,000 people around 1100, about as many as London then; the numbers are estimates. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/74-the-biggest-cities-of-every-age-and-of-today/14/) — Some capitals were planned from scratch to be fair between regions: Washington DC in the 1790s, Canberra chosen in 1908 and founded in 1913, and Brasília in 1960. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/74-the-biggest-cities-of-every-age-and-of-today/15/) — In the USA only about 2 people in 100 work on farms, but with machines they grow food for many millions of city people. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/74-the-biggest-cities-of-every-age-and-of-today/16/) — Many cities are trying car-free centres, more bikes and more trees to cool hot streets; some people like it, others worry about shops and getting around, so it is debated. - ← previous: [Cities: why they grow, and how water and sewers made them safe](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/73-cities-why-they-grow-and-how-sewers-made-them-safe/) - next →: [Ideas on the move: numbers, paper, letters, chess and news](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/75-ideas-on-the-move-numbers-paper-letters-chess-and-news/) - ↑ back to [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/)