Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Dan
this is about as close to an apples to apples comparison as we're likely gonna get:
Chicago Urban Area - 8,608,208 people - 2,443 sq. miles (2010)
Greater Toronto Area - 6,417,516 people - 2,751 sq. miles (2016)
but chicago vs. toronto metro area dick-measuring taffy pulls are so very 2002.
what's ACTUALLY interesting about chicago and toronto is that the #2 and #3 skylines in north america are on the shores of some giant lakes in the interior of the continent as opposed to the highly touted, much-vaunted (dare i say over-hyped?) coastal regions.
whoops, that last sentence should probably go in the unpopular opinions thread.
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I certainly don't want to bring back those old internet battles of yore, but that's not really apples to apples because it's comparing Chicago's
urban area population and (strictly built-up) land area to Toronto's Greater Metropolitan area (excluding Hamilton) which includes huge swaths of undeveloped land.
Demographia's 2017 world urban areas definitions is more apples to apples IMO.
Chicago, IL-IN-WI
pop. 9,140,000
land area 6,856 (km2)
urban density (/km2) 1,300
Toronto, ON (includes Hamilton)
pop. 6,530,000
land area 2,300 (km2)
urban density (/km2) 2,800
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._by_population
By population and continuously built-up area, Chicago is clearly larger. The Greater Golden Horseshoe is about 9.4 million now in a similar land area to Chicagoland, but compared to Chicagoland, the GGH is much less continuously built-up. Chicagoland (pop. 9.9 million) has about 750,000 people in areas beyond the continuously built-up urban area, while the GGH (9.4 million) has over 2.8 million people beyond the continuous urban area. I doubt that those undeveloped gaps in the GGH will ever be urbanized since much of that land consists of protected greenbelt.