Weird. Later in the article, it says only 18% speak English. I'm going to leave Johannesburg off for now in the absence of better data. English is not a very common first language in the majority of South Africa.
"THERE are 11 official languages in South Africa, all of which are spoken in Johannesburg. By far the most widely spread languages, however, are English and Afrikaans, and English is understood just about anywhere. Afrikaans is similar to Dutch and Flemish"
In the latest revision of this quiz I have added Johannesburg and Cape Town. Even though only about 10% of South Africans have English as a first language, they seem to be concentrated in the cities. It also seems likely that, over time, the percentage of English speakers will grow.
I'm more surprised that Durban IS on there than that Johannesburg isn't. Maybe it's because there are many different languages spoken there that allows English to be the most commonly-spoken. I would have expected Zulu would be much more prevalent in that part of the country.
I guessed Miami first just because I was curious to see if it would be on here. I also remember it being classified as Spanish-speaking on other quizzes on the site. I was also wondering if Dubai would show up but I guess they have fewer people than Vancouver does.
I should have gotten Cincinnati. I thought Columbus was bigger, so when Columbus wasn't there, I just ignored Cinci. Same thing for Brisbane but with Canberra.
True! Cincinnati has a relatively small city population but is surrounded by very many other incorporated towns including a couple of enclaves, about 25 Kentucky cities, and a few in Indiana.
But Canberra is still tiny. It's population is a bunch of politicians, some hobos who can't find affordable housing and live off Centrelink, a few lost tourists and the emu and kangaroo on the Australian coat of arms.
Is this list based on total or native speakers? I'm asking because a city (Durban) with a natively-English-speaking majority in (South) Africa seems unreal.
Natal (the province in which Durban sits) was a British Colony from 1843 to 1910, and they brought in Indian slaves to work on the sugar cane fields surrounding Durban, all the slaves were forced to speak English. The legacy of which means a very high concentration of English speaking population.
Indentured labour ≠ slavery. Equating them is doing a real injustice to people who have been slaves. But yes, the Indian community in South Africa do predominantly speak English as a first language, and they are concentrated around Durban.
Yeah, I kinda feel like if it didn't qualify with 'US cities' you'd kinda just assume world cities, right? Besides, a quiz of biggest English-speaking US cities would really just be a list of US cities.
It DOES say that English should be the MOST-COMMON language, not just that it is spoken by a large percentage. I imagine that in New Delhi or Johannesburg, something other than English is spoken most often in non-business situations.
Depends on definitions. In an area like SEQ there are many different interpretations of what is and is not a separate city, where one ends and another begins. As a whole SEQ has about 3.5 million or so. I suspect this figure (2.9 million now) takes in the whole SEQ sprawl, but discounts people living in SEQ LGAs, but not in built up areas.
its because for most of these quizzes, this site uses "urban area" which obviously doesnt coincide with the actual population that most people think of these cities with, which i personally, and a lot of others, think is very stupid.
St. Louis Metro Area gets confusing depending on what you count. They must use the lowest possible one than the more commonly accepted, 2.8/2.9 million.
same can be said for a lot of indian cities. I think the idea is that Montreal is predominantly french. most signs, billboards, advertisements and so on are in french. so you can consider it a french city
Birmingham UK ............ and Johannesburg, Cape Town, Singapore should be in the list after all it states in the question most commonly spoken language, and I'm sure these cities qualify.
It's an interesting situation. A lot of northern states have bad weather and high taxes. Florida has neither. Its also relatively affordable. Its kind of a no brainer for pensioners to set up residence in Florida for six months of the year. The population of Florida is now over 20 million and growing rapidly. Of course, much of the state is at very low elevation, so global warming might eventually throw a wrench in the works.
The government defined "metropolitan" areas often contain enormous physical areas of rural land and thoroughly separate urban areas. China and the U.S. are notoriously bad for inflated population numbers in a "metro" area.
The U.S. Census does tabulate actual urbnaized areas, which often differ greatly. However, they bafflingly break down a few solidly continual urban areas such as Los Angeles and San Francisco into several urban areas, which leaves an underrepresentation of overall urban population. Go figure.
Using just city population major world cities get reduced to small towns and expanses of suburban sprawl get turned into large cities. Metropolitan population much more closely reflects the real world reality than arbitrary and imaginary lines around cities. Take California - using city population San Francisco is just two Bakersfields. Go to one and then the other - that patently does not reflect the realities. In Australia the warping of reality is even plainer. What are the five largest cities in Australia? You might think Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. Going by official city population it's Brisbane, Gold Coast, Moreton Bay, Canterbury, Central Coast.
Well, you're confusing the City of London with London. I still believe, that city populations are the better measurements. It is easy, to take the population of nearby cities into accountance, but figuring out, where a metro area ends or beginns is far harder and often arbitrary. City population may be counterintuitiv in many instances, but it is far more precise.
Why is Accra, Ghana not on the list? citypopulation.de lists the metro area at over 4 million, and English is both the official language and the lingua franca.
Because it is about cities with English as the most commonly-spoken *first* language. Many people speak English in Accra, but most speak it as their second language, I would assume.
The greater Manchester urban area consists of Manchester, Bolton, Sale, Rochdale, Stockport and Salford, plus lots of smaller ares that bring it up to 3 million. Manchester itself only has 514 thousand.
Man, doing urban area rather than city proper really makes a difference. Miami city proper has somewhat more than 600,000. Its urban area is practically ten times that.
Should accept San Jose, the city itself is larger than San Francisco and is as much the central city of the Bay Area as San Francisco. Also should accept St Paul, it is comparable in size to Minneapolis and is almost always mentioned together, twin cities or Minneapolis/St Paul.
I was very doubtful about Durban, but in the 2011 census 49.75% gave English as their first language, when in 2001 it was only 29%. So I guess that is enough to count for this quiz.
Singapore should be included. According Wikipedia (which in turn cites a reliable source), 36.9% speak English as the "language most frequently spoken at home", just ahead of Mandarin at 34.9%. By your criteria that makes it a city where English is the most spoken first language. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore#Languages
So I take it that Singapore population figure takes in Johor Bahru too? Cos it is quite a bit bigger than the population of the Republic of Singapore. I suspect with it included, Mandarin once again overtakes English as the most spoken first language, though I can't find precise figures for Johor Bahru to get the totals for the whole metro area.
Same with the netherlands, though it is not what is spoken at home. (though it does seems to go to english more and more. A lot of sentences sneak in. Kids 4 year old say ready set go, before they do something like race eachother. Instead of a phrase that has allways been used here, (klaar voor de start, af). And I can give you many many more examples, little kids talk to eachother and their parents in english for fun. But like I said above, a lot of everyday sentences have been replaced by english ones.
Not just kids. Saying "ready?" When you are about to leave and waiting for the other person, is normal and used as much as the dutch version by adults. "Nice" has replaced its counterpart. "No way!" is normal. The list is rather big. So I'll stop now ;)
You would be safe to add Accra. Most people in Ghana speak English, and most English speakers use it as their primary language. No other African language comes close in terms of exclusive use. However, Accra and Kumasi aren't populous enough to make the list.
It could still be the most commonly spoken first language. When other languages have a lower percentage. (since several languages are spoke there. 27% english speaking does not mean that 73% speaks ONE other language, but the 73% is all the other languages together)
I noticed that too. I think it might be that they were in descending order when the quiz was created in 2014, but since then, the population figures have been updated without reordering them.
I expected Jacksonville to be here instead of Miami bc Miami is infested with spanish speakers while Jacksonville has a higher population and over there I’ve seen more English speakers
Much has been written on the topic and I'll just add to it. If we are stating "first-language", South African cities are not likely to be included (even taking in the concentration in cities). However, if it is about what is mostly spoken or understood including 2nd level or non-native, South Africa (and others) might very well be on this list.
i mean singapore and the other south african cities like johannesburg and cape town are technically true there can also be many others in those cities that also speak different languages, for example singapore also speaks mandarin, tamil, and malay, while south africa also speaks, afrikaans, zulu, xhosa, swazi, etc
Natal (the province in which Durban sits) was a British Colony from 1843 to 1910, and they brought in Indian slaves to work on the sugar cane fields surrounding Durban, all the slaves were forced to speak English. The legacy of which means a very high concentration of English speaking population.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Singapore
The U.S. Census does tabulate actual urbnaized areas, which often differ greatly. However, they bafflingly break down a few solidly continual urban areas such as Los Angeles and San Francisco into several urban areas, which leaves an underrepresentation of overall urban population. Go figure.
Not just kids. Saying "ready?" When you are about to leave and waiting for the other person, is normal and used as much as the dutch version by adults. "Nice" has replaced its counterpart. "No way!" is normal. The list is rather big. So I'll stop now ;)