Approximately how many cities with over one million residents does the world presently have?

• A. 100
• B. 250
• C. 500
• D. 1000

Answer: (C)

This question tests your sense of the scale of global urbanization by asking how many places around the world have populations over one million. The widely cited estimate is roughly five hundred cities with more than a million residents, based on counts of city proper populations used in most demographic references. It sits well above a couple of hundred but well below a thousand, and the exact number can vary a bit depending on whether you count city boundaries versus metropolitan areas or which year of data you use. So five hundred is a reasonable, commonly accepted approximation.