Population of the Largest Cities by Position in Modern Era

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First published: Monday August 25th, 2025

The population of the most populous, second most populous, third most populous, fourth most populous, sixth most populous, and seventh most populous cities every ten years from 1511 CE to 2021 CE, according to Ollie Bye's "The Largest Cities Throughout History: Each Year."

Exact data from spreadsheet used as necessary

Rounded to tens of thousands for populations less than a million or hundreds of thousands if a city has more than a million population

From 1800-1847, the video only shows top 6 cities

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Year	First	Second	Third	Fourth	Fifth	Sixth	Seventh
1511	0.67	0.5	0.4	0.27	0.25	0.22	0.2
1521	0.68	0.5	0.39	0.34	0.25	0.2	0.2
1531	0.68	0.5	0.43	0.38	0.25	0.2	0.2
1541	0.68	0.55	0.5	0.37	0.25	0.2	0.19
1551	0.69	0.66	0.5	0.35	0.26	0.21	0.2
1561	0.69	0.66	0.5	0.32	0.26	0.21	0.21
1571	0.7	0.67	0.45	0.28	0.26	0.26	0.22
1581	0.7	0.68	0.38	0.33	0.26	0.25	0.25
1591	0.7	0.69	0.4	0.31	0.31	0.3	0.26
1601	0.7	0.7	0.43	0.38	0.35	0.27	0.23
1611	0.7	0.7	0.46	0.45	0.37	0.29	0.27
1621	0.71	0.7	0.49	0.47	0.38	0.34	0.3
1631	0.71	0.7	0.5	0.48	0.4	0.38	0.32
1641	0.72	0.7	0.5	0.42	0.41	0.41	0.4
1651	0.72	0.5	0.5	0.47	0.45	0.41	0.39
1661	0.73	0.54	0.51	0.51	0.49	0.44	0.44
1671	0.73	0.66	0.57	0.54	0.52	0.41	0.37
1681	0.8	0.74	0.61	0.58	0.55	0.5	0.4
1691	0.85	0.75	0.65	0.61	0.54	0.54	0.4
1701	0.9	0.74	0.68	0.65	0.57	0.52	0.4
1711	0.84	0.72	0.7	0.69	0.61	0.51	0.38
1721	0.75	0.7	0.7	0.69	0.63	0.51	0.39
1731	0.8	0.69	0.67	0.64	0.56	0.53	0.4
1741	0.85	0.69	0.64	0.64	0.54	0.42	0.4
1751	0.9	0.69	0.65	0.62	0.56	0.41	0.4
1761	0.94	0.69	0.69	0.61	0.58	0.48	0.4
1771	0.98	0.73	0.69	0.6	0.59	0.56	0.4
1781	1	0.78	0.68	0.64	0.63	0.59	0.39
1791	1	0.82	0.72	0.68	0.65	0.58	0.41
1801	1.1	0.86	0.8	0.68	0.57	0.55
1811	1.1	1	0.84	0.7	0.68	0.61
1821	1.2	1.2	0.88	0.8	0.72	0.65
1831	1.4	1.4	0.97	0.9	0.74	0.7
1841	1.8	1.5	1.1	0.85	0.76	0.74
1851	2.2	1.6	1.3	0.87	0.78	0.78	0.63
1861	3	1.6	1.3	1.1	0.85	0.82	0.78
1871	3.9	2	1.4	1	0.94	0.92	0.85
1881	4.7	2.5	1.9	1.4	1.1	0.95	0.94
1891	5.5	2.9	2.8	2.1	1.4	1.2	1.2
1901	6.2	4	3.4	2.7	1.7	1.7	1.6
1911	7.1	6.3	4.5	3.3	3	2.2	1.9
1921	8	7.5	4.8	4.6	3.8	3.1	2.1
1931	10.1	8	6.7	5.6	4.1	3.9	3.3
1941	10.9	9.1	8.5	5.7	5.2	4.4	3.8
1951	12.5	11.7	8.3	7.3	6.3	5.4	5.3
1961	17.3	14.3	11	8.1	7.5	6.9	6.7
1971	23.9	16.1	15.3	9.1	8.5	8.4	8.2
1981	28.9	17.1	15.6	13.2	12.3	10	9.6
1991	32.7	18.5	16.2	15.9	15	12.7	11.2
2001	34.6	18.6	18.6	17.8	17.2	16.4	16.4
2011	36.9	22.7	20.9	20.3	19.9	19.3	18.4
2021	37.3	31.1	27.7	22.2	21.9	21.7	20.8

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