Question for the fellow historians!

[Macilrille]

I think it is an interesting subject for an article, but that there is not enough meat on it for a Ma Dissertation (though the Danish ones these days are only supposed to be 50- 70 pages, mine was 97 and should have been a PhD thesis). I think you should possibly broaden your research a bit (we also have precious few sources for most of these cities), perhaps to include more cities, perhaps instead re-evaluate the way we measure populations by looking at all the cities we have sources for? Though there we go at a PhD Thesis again...

What about looking at a Han Chineese city? Or Edo? There should be ample sources for them (or am I totally off the track?). Medieval European ones you can forget about, not enough sources, nor comparable size. What about Alexandria? The other great city of its time? Or Athens? Brunt mentions that it is comparable on a smaller scale in that it was a city-state that grew an empire...

[Hax]

In essence, this is what I need: I need a city that is comparable to Rome in terms of size and importance. There is a great deal of debate about the size of Rome. If I can compare the results of the debate about another city to Rome, I might be able to draw some conclusions based on that. For example: if city X had so many inhabitants and was in a similar position, then perhaps our estimates about Rome should either be higher or lower. I hope that makes sense.

The ones I have in mind right now are;

- Al-Qahira/Caïro, Fatimid Egypt
- Baghdad, Abbasids
- Chang'an, Qin Dynasty or Tang Dynasty