Cities: drowned, held and moved · The Next Five Centuries

About eight billion people live on Earth in 2497, roughly as many as in 2026, but they don't live in the same places. Of the fifty largest urban areas of 2026, eleven are drowned or emptied. Ten more survive only behind sea walls, and eighteen are much smaller than they were. Only seven are as big as before or bigger, and they stand on high ground, in the refuge latitudes or, like Kinshasa, on a great river's power. Three others split into separate polities, and one moved inland.

The sea decides where a city can stand; its bloc decides whether it does. The Settlement walled Tokyo and London, the Mandate walled the Yangtze delta, the Parishad built partly underground against the heat and defended selected ports and delta cities, and the Open Cities defended whatever their fortunes lived in.

Every child learns the names of the lost cities at the Recitation (see Ritual and memory, in Culture). Most families claim one.

How high the sea rose

By 2497 the sea is about 4 m higher than in 2026, averaged over the globe, and still rising by about half a metre a century. Most of the rise came between 2100 and 2300, from ice-sheet loss committed during the Long Heat.

The rise is uneven. The loss of West Antarctica raised the sea most on coasts far from it, in North America and the Indian Ocean, and less near Antarctica itself. The Northern Cold Shock piled more water against North America's east coast. So the sea stands about 5 m higher at New York and about 3 m higher off Patagonia.

For many great cities the ground mattered more than the sea. Jakarta, Tianjin, Bangkok, Manila, Dhaka and Shanghai pumped their groundwater and sank, some by several metres, so the sea rose further against their streets than anywhere else. Storm surges add metres more. In 2497, unwalled land below about 4 m is under water at high tide, and land up to about 8 m floods in every great storm.

No great city drowned in a night. Each was lost in stages: insurance left in the Grinding, then the state stopped repairing, then people moved, and only then did the water come.

What decided a city's fate

The sea: height above it, how fast the ground was sinking, and exposure to storm surge.
Heat: the wet-bulb belt across South Asia, the Gulf, the Sahel, southern China and the North China Plain. Height saved some cities inside it.
Water: rivers held by someone upstream, and aquifers pumped dry. Tehran was lost to thirst, not heat.
Frontiers: cities on the Indus Line, the Kisumu Line and the Laurentian line became garrisons or wall cities.
The bloc: whether anyone would pay to hold a city, and who it took in. The Contraction broke the largest cities into federated districts, and some districts became polities.

The cooler climate did not bring everyone back. By then, jobs, homes and transport had moved elsewhere, and the old cities’ water and power systems had fallen apart. Some places were resettled, but expanding an established refuge was often cheaper than rebuilding an abandoned city.

The fate scale

Fate	Meaning
Grown	Bigger than in 2026: refuge, highland and northern cities
Stable	About the same size
Held	Kept behind sea walls or in polders, at a cost
Shrunk	Still standing, much smaller
Moved	A new city upslope or inland carries the name
Split	The districts became separate polities
Drowned	Under the sea; read at the Recitation
Emptied	Abandoned to heat or thirst; read at the Recitation
Ruin	Kept as a memorial or a claim
Returned	Emptied, then resettled

A city can carry two fates, such as Drowned and Moved.

The great cities of 2026

The fifty largest urban areas in the UN's World Urbanization Prospects 2025, by the bloc that holds them in 2497. Population is for 2025, in millions.

The Mandate (19)

#	City	2025	Fate	What happened
1	Jakarta	41.9	Drowned, moved	The north sank faster than the sea rose. The capital went to Nusantara; the southern districts survive as a smaller city
5	Shanghai	29.6	Held	Inside the Yangtze polder, the largest sea defence on Earth: the Mandate's Low Countries
6	Guangzhou	27.6	Shrunk	The Pearl delta was let go and became a bay; the city retreated north
7	Cairo	25.6	Shrunk	Stands above a delta half drowned and wholly salted; half underground
8	Manila	24.7	Drowned, moved	The bayside drowned; Manila now stands in the Rizal hills
10	Seoul	22.5	Shrunk	Whole but half empty, after Korea's births collapsed; Incheon is walled
14	Bangkok	18.2	Drowned, moved	Abandoned behind failing dykes in the Grinding, drowned in the 2100s; a new Krung Thep stands on the Khorat plateau
16	Beijing	17.0	Shrunk	North China Plain heat and dry aquifers. The Council sits in Harbin; Beijing keeps the ceremonial seat
19	Moscow	14.5	Stable	A Chinese provincial city facing Kyiv; Russians left and Chinese settlers came
20	Ho Chi Minh City	14.1	Drowned	Lost with the Mekong delta
23	Shenzhen	13.9	Shrunk	The reclaimed waterfront was lost; the hill districts hold
26	Lagos	12.8	Drowned, moved	The lagoon city was lost; a new Lagos stands inland
40	Bandung	8.9	Grown	The highland city that took in Jakarta
41	Kuala Lumpur	8.4	Shrunk	Humid heat
43	Suzhou	7.7	Held	Inside the Yangtze polder
45	Hangzhou	7.5	Held	On the polder's southern rim
46	Wuhan	7.4	Shrunk	Furnace heat and Yangtze floods
47	Tianjin	7.3	Drowned	It sank faster than any other great city; the Bohai took it
48	Alexandria	7.3	Drowned	Its ancient harbour was already under water in 2026; the sea took the rest

The Parishad (12)

#	City	2025	Fate	What happened
2	Dhaka	36.6	Shrunk	A protected city of the Ganga Compact, on the new edge of a drowned delta
4	Delhi	30.2	Shrunk	Lived through the wet-bulb century as a fortified, partly underground city
9	Kolkata	22.6	Drowned	Sinking ground, the Hooghly and the lost Sundarbans
11	Karachi	21.4	Shrunk	Taken at the Indus Line in the 2150s; now a heat-proof fortress port on a drowned delta
12	Mumbai	20.2	Split	The reclaimed land went back to the sea and the seven islands reappeared, each a district polity
17	Lahore	15.2	Shrunk	Underground
24	Bengaluru	13.2	Shrunk	The one great city left in the emptied south, kept on its plateau by desalinated water pumped uphill
29	Chennai	11.2	Emptied	Heat emptied it, then the sea took the shore
34	Patna	9.9	Shrunk	Ganga floods and heat (listed by the UN as Hajipur)
37	Hyderabad	9.2	Emptied	Southern India's heat
38	Tehran	9.2	Emptied	Lost to thirst. Iran moved its capital, as its president said in 2025 it would have to
44	Ahmedabad	7.6	Shrunk	Underground

The Settlement (11)

#	City	2025	Fate	What happened
3	Tokyo	33.4	Held	Walls hold the bay; the eastern wards that lay below sea level were let go
18	Istanbul	15.0	Grown	Took in refugees from Syria, Iraq and the Gulf; holds the Bosphorus
25	Osaka	13.0	Held	Walled, and smaller
28	Luanda	11.4	Shrunk	A smaller port
30	Kinshasa	10.9	Grown	Capital of the Congo Basin Commonwealth. It has grown into Brazzaville, across the river, and the Inga dams' power keeps both cool
33	London	10.4	Held	Behind an outer barrage across the Thames estuary; thinned by the Cold Shock
36	Paris	9.4	Shrunk	Heat waves, then the Cold Shock's winters
39	Taipei	9.1	Held	Walled against the Tamsui; the Fab Truce keeps it whole
42	Dar es Salaam	7.8	Moved	To Dodoma, already the capital in 2026
49	Nagoya	7.2	Held	Walled, and smaller
50	Johannesburg	7.1	Grown	On the highveld at 1,750 m; the heart of the Zambezi Federation's resettlement

The Open Cities (8)

#	City	2025	Fate	What happened
13	São Paulo	19.0	Grown	Brazil's coast moved up to its plateau; the largest of the Open Cities
15	Mexico City	17.7	Split	Its boroughs became separate Open Cities; the lakebed still sinks and the water is bought
21	Buenos Aires	14.0	Held	The southernmost great Open City
22	New York	13.9	Held	Walled against the highest sea in the Americas, and pressed against the Laurentian line: the Berlin of the Americas
27	Los Angeles	12.7	Split	Already 88 separate cities in 2026; heat, fire and drought; the coast was lost
31	Bogotá	10.6	Grown	At 2,640 m; the capital of the Cordillera Republic, kept well away from the Galápagos Open City that hosts the Elevator
32	Lima	10.6	Shrunk	In the Cordillera Republic. Its glaciers are gone; it lives on desalination
35	Rio de Janeiro	9.5	Shrunk	The beaches drowned; the hillside favelas are now the best ground

Australia and New Zealand

City	Polity	Fate	What happened
Melbourne	Australia	Grown	The coolest mainland city and now the largest; the bay suburbs are walled
Sydney	Australia	Shrunk	Heat emptied the western suburbs; the harbour, on high sandstone, holds
Brisbane	Australia	Shrunk	Floods and humid heat
Perth	Australia	Shrunk	A drying corner of the continent, run on desalination
Adelaide	Australia	Shrunk	Home of the Murray–Darling authority, an ancestor of the Basin Compacts
Canberra	Australia	Stable	Inland at 580 m
Darwin	Australia	Shrunk	The Settlement's base for the Wallace frontier
Gold Coast	Australia	Drowned	Its canal estates made it the first Australian city lost
Cairns	Australia	Shrunk	The reef is gone
Hobart	The Austral League	Grown	A refuge city of the cold south
Auckland	Austral League	Grown	Built on an isthmus; the waterfront drowned
Wellington	Austral League	Stable	The League's Chamber meets here in its turn
Christchurch	Austral League	Shrunk	The flat eastern suburbs were lost; the city moved west toward the plains
Queenstown	Austral League	Grown	A town in 2026, now the chief city of the New Zealand highlands

Other notable cities

City	Bloc	Fate	Note
Seats and frontiers
Harbin	Mandate	Grown	Seat of the Mandate's Council
Nusantara	Mandate	Grown	Jakarta's successor
Addis Ababa	Mandate	Grown	At 2,350 m, the seat of the African provinces, though Cairo is larger. The provinces are run from the African Union's old hall, a gift from China in 2012
Kampala	Mandate	Stable	The Kisumu Line runs along its southern edge
Kisumu	Settlement	Stable	The Line takes its name from it
Nairobi	Settlement	Grown	A frontier capital at 1,800 m
Islamabad	Mandate	Shrunk	Seat of the corridor from Gilgit to Gwadar. The Indus Line runs between it and Rawalpindi, and Rawal Lake, which waters Rawalpindi, lies on the Mandate's side
Rawalpindi	Parishad	Shrunk	Pakistan's army headquarters until the 2150s; now a Parishad wall city facing Islamabad across the Line
Kyiv	Settlement	Stable	A frontier capital facing Moscow
Kaliningrad	Settlement	Stable	Hanseatic since the Kaliningrad Exchange
St Petersburg	Mandate	Held	Behind its dam, on the northern march
Chicago	Open Cities	Grown	Cool, with lake water; faces Laurentian Wisconsin
Held by sea defences
Amsterdam, Rotterdam	Settlement	Held	Behind the Hanseatic Compact's dykes
Singapore	Mandate	Held	The walled fortress on Malacca
Hong Kong	Mandate	Held	Its reclamations were lost; the steep city holds
Drowned
Venice	Settlement	Ruin	Held until the barriers failed; now visited by boat
Miami	Open Cities	Drowned	The sea rose through the limestone beneath it, so walls were useless
New Orleans	Open Cities	Drowned	Already below sea level in 2026
Houston	Open Cities	Shrunk	Galveston was lost
Basra	Parishad	Drowned	With the Shatt al-Arab
Malé	Parishad	Drowned	The Maldives' capital. Its people went to Kerala and Lakshadweep; the Mandate disputes the drowned atolls and their seas from Sri Lanka
Funafuti, Tarawa, Majuro	Settlement	Drowned	Their peoples went to Australia under treaties like Tuvalu's of 2023, or, from the Marshalls, to the Open Cities under their old compact with the United States
Emptied by heat
Riyadh	Parishad	Emptied
Baghdad	Parishad	Emptied	Its river is held upstream by Anatolia
Dubai	Parishad	Ruin	Towers standing in the shallows; its money left for the Open Cities and the Belt
Mecca	Parishad	Shrunk	The pilgrimage moved to the cool months and the nights
Khartoum	Mandate	Returned	Resettled under the Sahel Greening
Old and sacred cities
Jerusalem	Buffer	Shrunk	Held by no bloc and watched by all
Damascus	Buffer	Shrunk	A city-state; still among the oldest continuously inhabited cities
Varanasi	Parishad	Shrunk	Held on through the heat as a sacred city
Rome	Settlement	Shrunk	Heat; the old city is kept
Athens	Settlement	Shrunk	Heat; faces the Mandate across the sea
Washington	Open Cities	Shrunk	The Mall floods; the Capitol stands as a memorial to a vanished country
Lanzhou	Mandate	Shrunk	Memorial of the Lanzhou Killings
Refuge and growth
Toronto	Settlement	Grown	Among the largest cities on Earth
Montreal, Winnipeg	Settlement	Grown	Laurentian refuge cities
Vancouver	Settlement	Grown	The Fraser delta was lost
San Francisco	Open Cities	Shrunk	The bay shore drowned; the hills hold
Nuuk	Settlement	Grown
Punta Arenas	Settlement	Grown	Austral League
Cape Town	Settlement	Grown	Holds the Cape
Santiago	Open Cities	Shrunk	In the Cordillera Republic; shrunk by drought
Quito	Open Cities	Grown	In the Cordillera Republic, on the equator at 2,850 m
Galápagos	Open Cities	Grown	An Open City of the Cordillera Republic and host of the Elevator's platform; its port stands beside one of Earth's oldest reserves
Novosibirsk, Vladivostok	Mandate	Grown	Vladivostok is Haishenwai again
Lhasa	Mandate	Grown	Garrison of the rivers
Berlin	Settlement	Stable	Hanseatic
Gwadar	Mandate	Grown	A fortress port at the end of the corridor
Djibouti	Mandate	Stable	Holds the Bab-el-Mandeb

The Recitation

The Recitation reads two lists, the drowned and the emptied, in the order they were lost. A city is dated from the year its government left the old centre, even where outlying districts still stand. Cities that were moved are read under their old site, and cities that were resettled are still read, with the words "and returned".

Lost in	The drowned	The emptied
The Grinding (2030–2080)	Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Miami, New Orleans, Malé, Funafuti, Tarawa, Majuro	Tehran
The Contraction (2100–2180)	Jakarta, Manila, Kolkata, Lagos, Tianjin, Alexandria, Basra, Gold Coast	Riyadh, Baghdad, Dubai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Khartoum
The long rise (2180–2400)	Venice

The largest cities of 2497

No city on Earth in 2497 is governed as one the size of Jakarta in 2026. The Contraction broke the megacities into districts, and the birth cap keeps Earth near eight billion. The largest urban areas now lie in the refuge latitudes, on high ground and behind the richest walls. The ten largest hold about 200 million people, about 2.5% of Earth's, against about 3.5% for the ten largest in 2026. Figures are rough and count each urban area whole, however many districts govern it.

City	Bloc	People (rough)	Why it is large
The Yangtze polder (Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou)	Mandate	\~35 million	The largest sea defence on Earth
Toronto and the Golden Horseshoe	Settlement	\~25 million	The Laurentian refuge, with lake water
Tokyo	Settlement	\~20 million	Held behind its walls, though Japan has shrunk
Kinshasa and Brazzaville	Settlement	\~20 million	Congo water and the Inga dams' power
São Paulo	Open Cities	\~20 million	Brazil's coast moved up to its plateau
Istanbul	Settlement	\~18 million	Refugees from the Gulf and Iraq; the Bosphorus
Harbin	Mandate	\~15 million	The Council's seat, in the refuge latitudes
Moscow	Mandate	\~14 million	Russians left and Chinese settlers came
Delhi	Parishad	\~13 million	Half its 2026 size, fortified and partly underground
Dhaka	Parishad	\~12 million	Held by the Ganga Compact on the edge of the drowned delta
Bogotá	Open Cities	\~12 million	High ground at 2,640 m; the Cordillera Republic's capital

The largest settlements off Earth are in Reaching outward. The largest of them, Ceres in the Belt, is nearly twice the size of the Yangtze polder.