What do Karachi, Shenzen, Lahore, Guangzhou and Lagos have in common?

Each is a city of more than 10 million people. Each is ranked among the 16-most-populous cities in the world.

And many North Americans know little or nothing about them.

This is not necessarily about the famous American blind spot when it comes to geography/the rest of the world.

This is also about the rapid development and growth of cities that have been around a long time but only recently have gone into hyperdrive, in terms of population.

This was brought home to me today in a scene-setter piece on the Asian Champions League final by The National’s John McAuley.

McAuley notes that Gwangzhou (the former Canton), is the third-biggest city in China, by some reckonings, with 12.7 million people.

Did you know that? I did not. Neither did I know it was one of the world’s 16-most-populated cities. Along with Lahore and Karachi, of Pakistan, and Lagos of Nigeria and Shenzen of China, which is pretty much next to Guangzhou, in Guangdong province.

Seems like it wasn’t long ago that we could name most of the world’s 10-biggest cities, but the list has undergone a lot of changes, many of them recently.

Still, it seems as if we should know about the world’s biggest cities. Should be able to attach a few facts to them. And now, even many of the best-informed of us cannot.

Here are two more “did you knows?” pertaining to population:

–Did you know that China has 143 cities of 1 million or more people, according to this list? 143! Doesn’t it seem like we should have heard of every city in the world with a million people? Well, we have not, and we give you Hezhou, Linhai, Benxi and Wuwei as four Chinese examples.

–Did you know that India has 46 cities of 1 million or more? Including Kota, Raipur, Gwalior and Vijayawada.

(The U.S. has 10 cities of more than a million, and I like to think that most Americans can name most of them. Think of places with NFL teams, aside from Los Angeles.)

So, yes, the world has lots and lots of cities with 1 million people, and dozens and dozens of them … we have never even heard their names mentioned.

The world is a big place, and getting bigger. Perhaps too big for one brain to arrange. Probably not one Chinese citizen in 100 can name every one of his country’s million-or-more cities. And, at 143, who could blame them?