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Depends on the place, but I think a population of more than 4-6 million would make a big city. In places with a lot of suburban sprawl, like USA/Australia/Canada, it would be closer to 6 million, whereas for denser cities it would be 4 million. Boston which is at about five million feels like it could either be a Big City or not
I'm not sure what would feel like a big city to me as I'm use to living in a huge densely populated city. I would suspect anywhere with a population more than 5/6 Million would feel big enough.
However it really does depend on the density, for example if the city is sprawling and made up of detached housing with a small central core I'll feel very small compared to a smaller city with a big central core with row-houses making up its suburban areas.
Its subjective and depends solely on urban development characteristics.
what makes a city feel big in the first place? Is it how tall the buildings are, or how large of an area the urban core takes up, or perhaps a combination of the two? For instance there are cities such as St Petersburg that has a population of 5,281,579 people where most buildings have 4 floors would have a different feeling of "big" compared to a city that was dominated by taller buildings such as Singapore with a population of 5,607,300 people. So which city would you say would feel bigger, given that they have very similar population?
That qualifies as 'big' in my reckoning. At 2.5 - 5 million, we are getting into the definition of metropolis and over 5 million, megapolis territory. I don't consider density as a criterium in my personal definitions since I have lived in extremely high density and extremely low density cities, and feel that sheer uninterrupted population is the only important factor.
Of course my definitions are subjective, but I have lived in cities from 1 million to a metro area of 16 million, that's how I see it.
Last edited by ABQConvict; 06-26-2017 at 06:37 PM..
I would consider most places with more than 250 000 citizens to be a "big" city, although I'm used to dense European cities. Might be different in the states.
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