Which of cities with the same or similar names is more populous?

A very interesting quiz! However, can I make a comment? Petropavlovsk, which you have in mind, is correctly called Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. I understand that you have shortened this infernal name, and there is nothing wrong with it: most people (especially foreigners) will understand if you say Petropavlovsk without the second part. But the problem is that Petropavlovsk is called "Petropavlovsk" in Russian, and in principle it is better known by this name (although the Kazakh name has recently become Petropavlovsk). Therefore, the use of "Petropavlovsk" (after all, we Russians also love to shorten the names of our cities in speech) always leads to confusion.