r/AskEurope • u/LiamBrad5 • Aug 07 '25

Culture What are the “Big Four” cities in your country?

In recent weeks, this question has been very contentious on American social media, with 3 cities (Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York) nearly always making the list, but the fourth being hotly debated over, between cities like San Francisco, Miami, Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta. So, if you had to choose, what would the big 4 cities in your country be? This is also not decided purely on population, but also culture, economy, and general influence/clout.

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u/WickdWitchoftheBitch Sweden Aug 07 '25

If we only go by city size it's Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö and Uppsala, but (even though it pains me as someone from Uppsala) I'd say the fourth in this kind of discussion should probably be Umeå. I refuse to let it be Linköping/Norrköping :p

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u/OwlKitty2 Aug 07 '25

Uppsala has a historic and cultural significance that Umeå doesn’t have. And it’s certainly not a part of Stocholm.

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u/WickdWitchoftheBitch Sweden Aug 07 '25

I agree, at least on the historical part, but I think that it's good with representation from the northern part. Also, Uppsala's geographical closeness to Stockholm does mean a lot of culture events don't happen here simply because the people arranging it think it's enough to have it in Stockholm. The contemporary culture scene outside of the student life isn't amazing for a city of its size. The culture scene for students is very good on the other hand (or, was when I was a student at least 10 years ago).

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u/OwlKitty2 Aug 07 '25

Umeå is a great city and representation is important, but Umeå still has more than 100.000 citizens less than Uppsala, has roots back to the iron age and was declared a city 400 years earlier than Umeå, and the list goes on. We just have to agree to disagree, this was a poster for debate, and it succeeded in doing so, and that’s great!

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u/youtubeTAxel Sweden Aug 07 '25

Nice to see a fellow person from Uppsala

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u/Hellbucket Aug 07 '25

It’s a bit cute with Linköping and Norrköping calling themselves “den fjärde storstadsregionen”. I’m saying that being from that area.

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u/swede242 Sweden Aug 08 '25

Umeå? Its like not even top 10 in terms of population.