Geography is destiny

[bakedweasels]

So here's a question I was noodling about last night. If you reset human history to 10,000 years ago and let events run their course, which 5 modern cities would you bet on to be the most populous/prosperous/significant in whatever world resulted

Comments

[tirinian]

Hmm. My Asian geography clearly isn't good enough. I'd expect something on the Nile Delta, sure. I'd probably expect something near New Orleans. I'm not sure something commanding the Bosphorus is more likely than something commanding Gibraltar. Looking up your Asian choices on wikipedia quickly, Singapore feels about on par with Bosphorus/Gibraltar, and Shanghai and Hong Kong feel about on par with Nile/Mississippi. Whether river mouths or narrow passages are more likely overall, I'm not sure. I want to give the Amazon a shoutout too, but... I have read too much of guns, germs, and steel to quite believe in the Amazon. I might give Sydney a shot.

[bakedweasels]

My thoughts on Constantinople/Cairo are that they command important land and water routes. Gibraltar feels important from a military perspective in the same way Istanbul does, but on a bigger scale. But I'm less sure about it as a commercial center--it's less on the way to everywhere than those other cities.

I basically discounted the Americas b/c I think the population distribution was so skewed globally against them 10k years ago, and I share your skepticism about the Amazon/tropics generally. I do agree that if you look at North America you probably land on NO/(DC/NY/PH)/SF and maybe Panama or something on the Great Lakes as the likeliest "big city" locations.