Why is Tokyo not first?

Because these are city-proper populations — the administrative city — rather than metropolitan areas. Tokyo's 37 million figure counts a vast surrounding region; the city itself is considerably smaller.

How current are the figures?

They come from national censuses collected at different times, so the vintage varies by country. GeoNames is a gazetteer rather than a live population counter.

Yes. It comes from The GeoNames gazetteer, served through the Opendatasoft public catalogue. Nothing is invented or simulated, and if the source cannot be reached the saver reports that instead of drawing something plausible.

Does it cost anything or need an account?

No. Every screensaver here is free, runs in the browser and needs no sign-up. This one uses a public API that requires no key.

The Largest Cities On Earth Screensaver

The Largest Cities On Earth screensaver ranks the world's largest cities by population from the GeoNames gazetteer, which holds every settlement over a thousand people — about 170,000 of them. The answer is not the one most people expect. It runs in the browser with nothing to install; press ESC to exit.

How the The Largest Cities On Earth screensaver works

The saver reads The GeoNames gazetteer, served through the Opendatasoft public catalogue.

No account and no key: the request goes straight from your browser, or from this site's own refreshed copy of the feed where the source does not allow browser access.

Values are drawn on a canvas that resizes with the window, so it works on a laptop or a wall display.

If the source is unreachable the saver says so on screen rather than showing stale numbers as though they were current.

A worked example

Sixteen cities ranked by population with their country code alongside. The top is overwhelmingly Chinese and Indian, and several entries most Europeans could not place on a map outrank every city in Europe. These are city-proper figures from national censuses of varying vintage, not metropolitan areas, which is why Tokyo appears smaller than its famous 37-million metro figure.

Settings & tips

Accent and Background recolour the display without changing the data.
Add it to a Multi-view grid to watch it alongside other live savers.
Press ESC at any time to leave fullscreen.

Frequently asked questions

Why is Tokyo not first?: Because these are city-proper populations — the administrative city — rather than metropolitan areas. Tokyo's 37 million figure counts a vast surrounding region; the city itself is considerably smaller.
How current are the figures?: They come from national censuses collected at different times, so the vintage varies by country. GeoNames is a gazetteer rather than a live population counter.
Is this real data?: Yes. It comes from The GeoNames gazetteer, served through the Opendatasoft public catalogue. Nothing is invented or simulated, and if the source cannot be reached the saver reports that instead of drawing something plausible.
Does it cost anything or need an account?: No. Every screensaver here is free, runs in the browser and needs no sign-up. This one uses a public API that requires no key.

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