@Peter_pbn​ I think it is fine, as he cites his source. There is always going to be a wide variation in numbers, depending on the source, and how they define a city. Particularly, whether it is just the population within the city limits or city proper, versus  including other municipalities within the same greater metropolitan area. Even then, it is hard or near impossible to get an apples to apples comparison, because of how municipalities are differently organized around the world. Two areas may be almost identical in population densities and urban sprawl, but because of how these cities' boundaries are defined, they will have vastly different "official populations", even though they are virtually alike size-wise. Even, within the same country, like the U.S. you wide variations for these same reasons and others.

@urbanemovies​ 

To your point, the source has more than one set of numbers, and the "city proper" numbers used seem to be the ones that most depend on how municipalities are organized.

The reason those numbers favor Chinese cities is given in the Wikipedia article: "many Chinese cities govern territories that extend well beyond the traditional 'city proper' into suburban and rural areas."

@Peter_pbn​ I am not sure I understand your point, other than Wikipedia has both sets of numbers. Even those numbers do not line up with numbers from other sources. My point is which cities are the largest in the world is argurable and the best you can hope for when comparing their sizes is some level of consistency, which to some degree will come from picking a reliable source that will use the same methodology to some degree and sticking with it (even then ???).

@Peter_pbn and @urbanemovies ,

I agree with Peter's point. I was concerned that the population metric I used (City Proper) disproportionately favored China. The UN 2018 population estimates provides a more varied distribution of countries.

I used the City Proper metric thinking that came closest to my preconceived notion of city. Rather than updating the current list, I will create a parallel list using the UN 2018 population estimates and post the resulting list as an alternate in this thread.

@dan_dassow​ & @Peter_pbn,

I share your concern. As I pointed out earlier, comparisons are tricky since there is not a single standard. Age of the cities, cultural factors, geopolitical and economic factors all play a role in how a city is defined for an area. I like the idea of using UN data, but 35% (2.8B/8.0B) of the world's population lives in two countries. I don't think using a different data set is going to noticeably change that fact. I agree that the answer option from those two countries is higher than was expected with 45% (16/35) of the poll choices being from China or India. Whether the 10% difference is from the data set or those countries' populations being more concentrated in urban areas than the rest of the world, or a combination I don't know. But, if I had to guess, I would say a combination with an emphasis on the more urbanly concentrated factor.

@dan_dassow​ Yes, using city proper vs. Metroplitan statistical area (MSA) makes a huge difference. Even then, there are different MSA definitions for the same city. I would pick MSA's over city proper populations to level the playing field for comparison, which I think you already realized.

@urbanemovies​ ,

Early in my career I worked with demographic information. I realized about 2/3rd of the way through creating this poll that China is disproportionately represented. This version of the poll is probably still viable. Most likely I will rename the parallel version of the poll:

Popular People in Most Populous Metropolitan Areas

@dan_dassow​

A good data set can make you or break you. It is an interesting poll for a couple reasons, both the cities cited and the celebrities listed.

Again, it is interesting to me because it is a tricky and layered question, Which cities are the largest? I don't know much about China, but when I see pictures of these shiny brand new cities, it makes me wonder what is going on. I assume it is combination of government and economic forces (jobs) that is driving the population boom in these cities.

I wasn't even sure they were able to access IMDb there, I assumed they had a Chinese knock-off version of IMDb available. 

The cool thing about Douban is that it has more information about Chinese movies than IMDb does, but perhaps that is to be expected.

@urbanemovies​ ,

Thank you.

@dan_dassow​ I think you covered yourself, but population data can get dated very quickly. So, it going live sooner rather than later, I think is a plus.