Most populated city in the known world

[TheBlackDragonWillReturn]

I'm really not sure about this topic, it could be Volantis. I feel like Braavos is up there just because it compares to a big city with all these different peoples. I feel like Qarth could be bigger than Volantis as I've always felt like the cities in the far east are more civilized but at the same time less civilized. Cities in Yi Ti must be really big because what I've read about them in The World of Ice and Fire they seem really powerful and are really good traders. Asshai is big in terms of size but the population musn't be very much unless there are heaps of people living in there houses and without children it musn't be a huge population.

[Werthead]

Volantis is the most populous and physically the largest of the Free Cities (Lorath is the smallest, at the other end of the spectrum, whilst Braavos is physically relatively small but seems to be extremely densely populated).

Vaes Dothrak is effectively a massive camp site with some permanent amenities, so it doesn't really count.

Asshai is (reportedly) physically the largest city in the world, but has a tiny population. One of the reasons the city is freaky is because about 90% of it is uninhabited and there are weird cults and all kind of things getting up to things in remote parts of the mostly-empty city many miles from the more inhabited harbour areas. In terms of population the city is probably quite low, maybe a fair bit lower than King's Landing.

I think the candidates for most populous city would therefore be Volantis (based on hard, existing data, the leading candidate); Qarth; Meereen; or one of the YiTish cities (Jin, Yinqi, Tiqui, Trader Town).

Meereen is huge by all reports (bigger than Astapor and Yunkai combined), but we have people who've seen both Meereen and Volantis and there seems to be this continuous statement about how vast and huge Volantis is and not so much for Meereen. Based on that, Volantis feels larger than Meereen.

Qarth is extremely rich but this does not automatically mean hugely populous. Food probably isn't a huge problem. As they control the Straits of Qarth, they presumably hold land on Great Moraq along the south coast of the straits and given the size of the island, that's likely enough to keep them fed. As the gateway between east and west - people from the Free Cities and Westeros seem to stop in Qarth if they haven't got the time to sail around the Jade Sea and vice versa for traders from Yi Ti and the islands - it likely has the largest transient population of any city in the world.

We don't have enough data from Yi Ti, but if Yi Ti really is a China analogue, it'd comfortably be the most populous nation in the world, and its large cities easily the biggest. Whether that's the case or not is unknown, but it seems probable.