Global cities built-up areas compared (incl. TO!)

[Hipster Duck]

Over at SSP, an Australian forumer known as Spotila has been mapping the built-up area of the world's city regions to scale. They're the best comparisons I've seen so far. Here are a few for comparison (the SSP site has many more cities at better resolutions):

 

[JasonParis]

Great post. Although, not having Greater L.A. on the map is a tad disappointing as it tends to obliterate everything else.

 

[Hipster Duck]

^True. Although the New York metro area can't be far behind in physical size. One of the better maps he drew compared the Pearl River Delta (Hong Kong, Macau, Shenzhen, Gaungzhou, Dongguan, etc.) - a megalopolis of 60 million people to Chicago, which has a metropolitan area of similar physical size. American cities are really in a league of their own, sprawlwise, and even the most compact of them - like the Bay Area - still make Canadian cities look good.

On the GTA map, there are some interesting discoveries as well. Hamilton is surprisingly compact, for one, with its 500,000 people crammed into an area about the same size as Oshawa-Whitby or Kitchener-Waterloo.

 

[Electrify]

I never knew that Atlanta was so large. I knew it was a big, but didn't think it was THAT big.

Worth noting that in terms of area, New York's urban area (New Jersey, New York, Long Island) is 8700km2 while Los Angeles (Los Angeles, Long Beach, Orange County) comes in at only 4300km2.

Toronto's urban area comes in at 1700km2.

 

[CDL.TO]

I even wonder about Atlanta. It's well-known for ultra-low-density semi-rural sprawl.

Does stuff like this even make the cut? http://g.co/maps/f3ykd