{"id":1405,"date":"2006-12-22T15:33:29","date_gmt":"2006-12-22T19:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=1405"},"modified":"2013-01-21T14:10:48","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T19:10:48","slug":"last-minute-gift-tips-for-the-urban-phile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2006\/12\/22\/last-minute-gift-tips-for-the-urban-phile\/","title":{"rendered":"Last-minute gift tip: Metropolitan World Atlas"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Some of you may be sitting at your desk today trying to kill time for the rest of the day so you can get out from behind your desk and finish up your holiday shopping. If you’re still stumped on what to get check out Spacing’s short-list of great book ideas<\/a> we posted earlier in the week.<\/p>\n

One of the books mentioned in that post was the Metropolitan World Atlas<\/em><\/a> [ 010 Publishers ]. Since it arrived in our mailbox it has become a mainstay for me whenever I want to procrastinate. You can check out maps and a variety of stats on 101 of the world’s biggest cities (and their sprawling neighbours). Each of the cities is presented in a two-page spread: the left page highlights the ranking on the city on specific topics like average commuting time, employment, health, crime, rail and road usage, climate and pollution. The right-hand page is a map of the city, though its not very detailed.<\/p>\n

Some interesting stats on Toronto: we have a residential density of 7,449 people every square kilometer. Compare that to Boston’s 3,151, Detroit’s 2,585, Miami’s 1,702, and Dallas’ 1,371 (which all have similar metropolitan populations to Toronto) and you start to see we’re doing okay, relatively, to other North American cities.<\/p>\n

One of the smaller features in the front of the book that I really enjoyed was the ranking of population throughout the last 2000 years. Here’s the list:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
100 AD:<\/strong>
\n1. Rome, Italy
\n2. Luoyang, China
\n3. Baghdad, Iraq
\n4. Alexandra, Egypt
\n5. Antioch, Turkey<\/td>\n		—
\n450,000
\n420,000
\n250,000
\n250,000
\n150,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1000 AD:<\/strong>
\n1. Cordova, Spain
\n2. Kaifeng, China
\n3. Istanbul, Turkey
\n4. Angkor, Cambodia
\n5. Kyoto, Japan<\/td>\n		—
\n450,000
\n400,000
\n300,000
\n200,000
\n175,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1500<\/strong>
\n1. Beijing, China
\n2. Vijayanager, India
\n3. Cairo, Egypt
\n4. Hangzhou, China
\n5. Tabriz, Iran<\/td>\n		—
\n672,000
\n500,000
\n400,000
\n250,000
\n250,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1800<\/strong>
\n1. Beijing, China
\n2. London, UK
\n3. Guangzhuo, China
\n4. Tokyo, Japan
\n5. Istanbul, Turkey<\/td>\n		—
\n1,100,000
\n861,000
\n800,000
\n685,000
\n570,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1900<\/strong>
\n1. London, UK
\n2. New York, USA
\n3. Paris, France
\n4. Berlin, Germany
\n5. Chicago, USA<\/td>\n		—
\n6,480,000
\n4,242,000
\n3,330,000
\n2,707,000
\n1,717,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1950<\/strong>
\n1. New York, USA
\n2. London, UK
\n3. Tokyo, Japan
\n4. Paris, France
\n5. Shanghai, China<\/td>\n		—
\n12,463,000
\n8,860,000
\n7,000,000
\n5,900,000
\n5,406,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2000<\/strong>
\n1. Tokyo-Yokohma, Japan
\n2. New York, USA
\n3. Seoul-Inchon, South Korea
\n4. Mexico City, Mexico
\n5. Sao Paulo, Brazil<\/td>\n		—
\n33,190,000
\n20,270,000
\n19,920,000
\n19,620,000
\n17,720,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

If you can find a copy of this book (try Ballenford Books at 600 Markham St<\/a>, behind Honest Ed’s) it is well worth putting on your coffee table to impress your guests. Or even better, hide the book and memorize these stats to impress your buddies with your newfound “knowledge.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some of you may be sitting at your desk today trying to kill time for the rest of the day so you can get out from behind your desk and finish up your holiday shopping. If you’re still stumped on what to get check out Spacing’s short-list of great book ideas we posted earlier inContinue reading “Last-minute gift tip: Metropolitan World Atlas”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1022,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21759],"tags":[4210,4200,4199,4205,4194,2745,532,499,1131,4201,4209,431,1846,4203,2267,854,4207,583,4212,4211,483,27,4197,4202,393,1237,1246,4196,764,1138,4204,2444,359,4195,1236,2610,1150,469,21,470,1730,3329,2975,1659,2974,1934,4198,468,19,4208,464,506,4206],"class_list":["post-1405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","tag-4210","tag-alexandra","tag-angkor","tag-antioch","tag-baghdad","tag-beijing","tag-berlin","tag-boston","tag-brazil","tag-cairo","tag-cambodia","tag-chicago","tag-china","tag-cordova","tag-dallas","tag-detroit","tag-egypt","tag-france","tag-france-4","tag-france-5","tag-germany","tag-gift-guide","tag-guangzhuo","tag-hangzhou","tag-india","tag-iran","tag-iraq","tag-istanbul","tag-italy","tag-japan","tag-kaifeng","tag-kyoto","tag-london","tag-luoyang","tag-mexico","tag-mexico-city","tag-miami","tag-new-york","tag-other-cities","tag-paris","tag-rome","tag-sao-paulo","tag-seoul","tag-shanghai","tag-south-korea","tag-spain","tag-tabriz","tag-tokyo","tag-toronto","tag-turkey","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-states","tag-vijayanager"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLast-minute gift tip: Metropolitan World Atlas - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2006\/12\/22\/last-minute-gift-tips-for-the-urban-phile\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Last-minute gift tip: Metropolitan World Atlas - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Some of you may be sitting at your desk today trying to kill time for the rest of the day so you can get out from behind your desk and finish up your holiday shopping. 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