Europe's 100 largest cities in 1854: surprises that call for caution

One hundred European cities in 1854: when Dublin almost matched Madrid

Mid-nineteenth-century Europe still lived with its back to the industrial revolution everywhere outside England. A list of the 100 most populous cities in 1854 holds several surprises and, above all, lessons about how misleading the figures can be unless you scrutinise the counting criteria.

It is striking, for example, that Dublin had only 6,000 fewer inhabitants than Madrid. At a time when the United Kingdom was already the manufacturing power, the Irish capital – a port and administrative centre – was competing with the Spanish court. It is also surprising to see Cádiz in 84th place, testimony to a port that had been key to colonial trade but was already beginning its decline.

The list comes with pitfalls. As several analyses point out, the administrative boundaries of 1854 do not match today's: Germany was not a unified state, Buda and Pest were two separate cities, and Bucharest was part of an Ottoman principality. Moreover, the sources mix municipal boundaries with urban cores, making direct comparison impossible.

Barcelona is a paradigmatic case. According to the list, the city had around 160,000 inhabitants, but that figure corresponds exclusively to the walled enclosure – what is now Ciutat Vella – which today barely exceeds 100,000 registered residents. In other words, far more people were crammed into a much smaller space than today. And without buildings taller than four or five storeys, because the elevator had barely been patented and high-rise construction was exceptional.

Imperial Rome, which once reached a million inhabitants, appeared in the ranking with 170,000. The weight of the Andalusian cities (Seville, Cádiz, Granada) had fallen sharply since the sixteenth century, while Málaga was beginning to take off. Overall, the urban map of 1854 reflected a continent in transition, where the old political capitals still held on but industrial ports were already setting the pace. The most disorienting figure: only two cities exceeded one million inhabitants – London and Paris – and one of them by a whisker.