Everyone has been asking me all semester how big Greenville is. All I have to say is compared to Sydney its small. But I actually sat down and consulted my good friend wikipedia and now, on my last night here, I have a really good answer.

Feel free to skip over the detailed section...

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The city proper of Greenville has a population of 62,000 people, which is well out of the top 200 that Wikipedia lists.

The Metropolitan-statistical area of Greenville-Mauldin-Easely has a population of 637,000 people,  making it the 83rd largest Metropolitan statistical area. A metropolitan statistical area is defined as a collection of counties with at least one core city with a population over 50000 and the area around it that has a high degree of socio-economic integration via commuting ties. There are 366 of these.

Greenville-Mauldin-Easley is ranked 82 out of 942 of Core based statistical areas with population of 640,000. A core based statistical area is the same as the metropolitan-statistical area expect that the core population must be greater than only 10000. So something is wrong and Greenville area should be 82 and 82 or 83 and 83....

Now for the shocker.
Greenville is ranked 45th out of 718 Primary Statistical Areas with a population of 126500. This is the most well defined and extensive ranking out of all the other ones mentioned. Each Primary Statistical Area is defined as single or multi-core metropolitan areas that aren't in any other metropolitan areas.

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I am from the 45th largest metropolitan area in the USA. I would have never, ever guessed that.
Even if you look at the other rankings, top 100 is pretty surprising to me.

Greenville is also the 6th largest city (city proper that is) in South Carolina, even though it is the largest metropolitan area in the state. Mt. Pleasant, Rock Hill, North Charleston, Charleston, and Columbia are the ones that beat it, in order from smallest to largest.

Ok, I'm done. I just think Greenville is the perfect size.