The 33 most populous nations (part 2 of 3)

Philippines’ largest cities: Quezon City (former capital), Manila, and Caloocan – these three abut each other.

Vietnam: Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, and Hai Phong (which served as France’s main naval base in Indochina).

Ethiopia: Addis Ababa, Mekele, and Adama (for half a century Haile Selassie re-named it “Nazareth” after the Biblical town).

15. Egypt: Cairo, Alexandria (the capital for nearly a thousand years until the Muslim conquest in the 7th century, it is the Mediterranean’s largest seaport), and Giza -- where you can find the great limestone Sphinx.

Germany: Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, and Cologne. [Dresden, eleventh in size, is the largest city that had been wholly under East German control].

Iran (77 million): Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, Karaj, and Tabriz (site of last week’s earthquake in the country’s NW corner, this city in the year 1500 was the world’s fourth largest!)

Turkey: Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir (site of ancient Smyrna, one of the seven churches in the Book of Revelation).

Congo (Democratic Republic): Kinshasa, Lubumbashi, and Mbuji-Mayi.  [Kinshasa sits on the Congo River directly across from Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of the Congo].

20. Thailand: Bangkok and two of its suburbs (Nonthaburi and Pak Kret).

France: Paris, Marseille, and Lyon (the Roman emperor Claudius was born here; and it was the episcopal see of Saint Irenaeus who helped vanquish Gnosticism).

United Kingdom (63 million): London, Birmingham (the world’s “first manufacturing town”), Glasgow, and Liverpool.