Most popular world cities per Wikipedia article views

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Exactly what I was saying. But he will still be arguing 10 years from now that Munich is not the 3rd largest in Germany (Ruhr aside).

If you blindly rank cities by Eurostat Metro population (which makes zero sense), you still wouldn't come to your conclusion.

Look at the numbers. Munich and Cologne have essentially the same population. Cologne is also a physically larger and historically larger and more important city.

But the obvious point is that there's more to relative importance than population.

[Docere]

The much derided GWAC rankings:

Alpha: Frankfurt
Alpha-: Berlin, Dusseldorf, Munich
Beta+: Hamburg
Beta-: Stuttgart

One can quibble about the exact placements, but Germany is very decentralized. There is nothing close to a London/Paris-type primate or even a clear-cut Toronto-Montreal-Vancouver ranking.

[Crawford]

Right, and I'm not arguing against Munich as a plausible third city, I'm saying there's no agreement re. a third city. Within Germany people talk about the Big Five or Big Seven (adding Stuttgart and Düsseldorf). There's no Big Three. You'll get highly variable answers depending on region.

Frankfurt has finance, the highest share of immigrants, the highest share of wealth and the air, road and rail hubs. Berlin is the capital, the largest and most famous and iconic city. Hamburg is the media and advertising capital and the second most important port in Europe. Düsseldorf is the fashion capital and the strongest business ties to Asia. Stuttgart and Munich have the most dynamic and auto-oriented economies, and Munich is often considered the prettiest major city. Cologne was the largest and most important for the vast majority of German history and has the most iconic symbol.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Right, and I'm not arguing against Munich as a plausible third city, I'm saying there's no agreement re. a third city. Within Germany people talk about the Big Five or Big Seven (adding Stuttgart and Düsseldorf). There's no Big Three. You'll get highly variable answers depending on region.

Frankfurt has finance, the highest share of immigrants, the highest share of wealth and the air, road and rail hubs. Berlin is the capital, the largest and most famous and iconic city. Hamburg is the media and advertising capital and the second most important port in Europe. Düsseldorf is the fashion capital and the strongest business ties to Asia. Stuttgart and Munich have the most dynamic and auto-oriented economies, and Munich is often considered the prettiest major city. Cologne was the largest and most important for the vast majority of German history and has the most iconic symbol.

I'm familiar with Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, and also some B tier German cities that are a step below, like Nuremberg, Dresden, Mannheim, etc.

Of the 5 in the "Big 7" that I've visited, Berlin, Hamburg and Munich feel decidedly bigger and more important than Stuttgart (and arguably Frankfurt, but definitely Stuttgart).

To contrast Stuttgart and Munich, because they're relatively close to one another, Munich has:

- hosted a modern summer Olympics;
- has a global hub of an airport
- was the capital of a former kingdom, so it has some element of monumentality and pomp to it
- has Oktoberfest, which everybody knows about
- has the top tier art museums, and the Deutsches Museum
- has a heavy rail metro
- has a much more extensive inner city. Obviously not something Paris or even Berlin-sized, but the pre-war midrise blocks sprawl out for a few kilometres in every direction

Stuttgart has almost none of those things. It has a midsized airport that doesn't really have flights outside of Europe and a light rail system. It has famous companies, and it has obvious wealth in the hills, but it doesn't feel like as much of a metropolis.

[Notonfoodstamps]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Berlin is 250 times the size of London if we strictly look at city proper. And Marseille is 4 times the size of Sydney if we look at city proper.

Berlin is 344.1 sq mi with a population of 3.7 million. It's roughly LA size, with slightly higher density.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Of the 5 in the "Big 7" that I've visited, Berlin, Hamburg and Munich feel decidedly bigger and more important than Stuttgart (and arguably Frankfurt, but definitely Stuttgart).

Stuttgart is clearly the least urban of the Big 7, and was historically the smallest. It's almost certainly at least a half tier below Munich. In many ways it feels like an overgrown village. There's nothing iconic.

But Stuttgart is important. It's Germany's auto capital, and has more top German HQ than Munich. And the larger region has more German HQ than any other region. And the top three German liberal arts and technical universities are in the general Stuttgart region. It's a business-research powerhouse, built by thrifty Swabians.

And Munich, to me, feels much smaller than Berlin and Hamburg, and likely smaller than Frankfurt and Cologne. It's nickname is "Millionendorf" - Village of one million. It has a relatively small core. It's pretty, but doesn't have iconic German attractions (but very close to iconic attractions in the Alps).

[Docere]

Originally Posted by mhays

Is this metro areas or some equivalent? Or just municipalities? If the latter, was it parallel in any way?

Having a quick look further into this, Hamburg had its own Berlin-type annexations in 1937. Cologne, Munich and Frankfurt did expand their boundaries in the postwar years.

[Crawford]

Frankfurt was historically a city-state like Hamburg, Berlin and Bremen, but the Prussians removed status. Not sure if boundaries changed.

Lübeck was also a city-state, but the Nazis removed status. There were five German free city-states.

[New Brisavoine]

+ Stuttgart, Nuremberg, and Tbilissi.

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