Quote:
Originally Posted by dreadnought
I don't know what article you read, but New York didn't become the most populous city until the opening of the Erie canal in the early 1800s. Philadelphia was the colonial-era largest city, and the second largest English-speaking city in the world (behind London, obviously.)
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I don't think any city in the Colonies was even in the top 10, let alone second.
Philly had 40k people in 1800. Looking exclusively at England, it looks like eight cities were larger and Bath was around the same size:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...cal_population
It also looks like Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff and Dublin were larger. Glasgow topped 40k around the Revolutionary War. Glasgow, for a time, was probably the second largest English speaking city.