Steven Neese, age 13, of High Point, N.C., for his question:

WHAT ARE THE WORLD'S 10 LARGEST CITIES?

Cities and metropolitan areas had a boom starting about 1900 when the auto became so important to most people. But cities have been growing steadily in size since industrial expansion started a few hundred years ago. Today more than one quarter of the world's people live in cities that have a population of 20,000 or more.

Population statistics show that the cities of the world are continuing to grow. People find great advantages of living in urban areas. They have high standards of living, fine schools for their children, good homes and are able to buy most of the necessities of life and also many luxuries.

In the United States today, 73 percent of the population live in cities while 76 percent of the people of Canada make their homes in urban areas. It's easy to understand why this happens: The jobs, for the most part, are located in the cities.

Boundaries of cities are not all defined in the same way. The largest city in the world, for example, is Shanghai. More than 10.8 million people live there. But the city also includes within its limits the surrounding urban and rural areas.

Second largest city in the world is Tokyo where 8.7 million live. But if you were to include the metropolitan area around Tokyo, you would have a population of 11.6 million. Tokyo is certainly the world's largest metropolitan center.

Third on the list of the world's largest cities is Mexico City with a population about 8.3 million; New York City comes in fourth with a population of 7.9 million.

The metropolitan population of New York, by the way, is almost 10 million, making it the fourth largest metropolitan area in the world right behind Mexico City with 10.7 million.

Fifth largest city in the world is Peking with its population of 7.6 million. Next in line are London and Moscow with populations of 7.2 million and 6.9 million.

Rounding out the top 10 list in eighth, ninth and tenth places are Bombay, Seoul and Jakarta. These three cities have populations of 5.9 million, 5.5 million and 5.4 million.

In the world's largest metropolitan areas, numbers five through 10 include the following in their correct order: Buenos Aires, Paris, Sao Paulo, Peking, Moscow and London. The city of Paris, not including the suburbs, rates as No. 38 among the world's largest cities.

Here are the 10 largest cities in the United States with their populations: New York City, 7.9 million; Chicago, 3.4 million; Los Angeles, 2.8 million; Philadelphia, 1.9 million; Detroit, 1.5 million; Houston, 1.2 million; Baltimore, 905,000; Dallas, 844,000; Washington, D.C., 756,000; Cleveland, 750,000.

Montreal is Canada's largest city with a population of 1.2 million, followed by Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Vancouver, Calgary, Hamilton, Ottawa, Laval and London.