provide a list of the top 25 world biggest or most important cities
(which cities is not essential/crucial). then answer which ones are:
- near to a sea or ocean?
- near a main river?
- in a main river delta?
PLEASE ADD A TRUSTED REFERENCE!!
(i am writing a paper on living on water)

Dear Tiesrijcken, 

The largest cities in the world, according to "Wikipedia" are: 

1	Shanghai	12,762,953	China	- near a sea
2	Mumbai (Bombay)	12,692,717	India	- near an ocean
3	Karachi	11,627,379	Pakistan - near a sea
4	Buenos Aires	11,548,541	Argentina - near a main river, and the ocean. 
5	New Delhi	10,928,270	India	Asia	- near a main river
6	Manila	10,443,877	Philippines	- near a sea
7	Moscow	10,381,288	Russia - near a river (not so major though)
8	Seoul	10,349,291	South Korea	- on a major river
9	Sao Paulo	10,021,437	Brazil - near an ocean
10	Istanbul	9,797,536	Turkey - two seas + the Bosphorus Strait
11	Lagos	8,789,133	Nigeria - near an ocean 
12	Mexico City	8,657,045	Mexico	
13	Jakarta	8,540,306	Indonesia - near a sea	
14	Lima	8,380,300	Peru	- near an ocean
15	Tokyo	8,336,611	Japan	- near an ocean
16	New York City	8,108,040	United States - near an ocean	
17	Kinshasa	7,787,832	D.R. Congo - near a delta/river
18	Cairo	7,734,602	Egypt - near a major river
19	Beijing (Peking)	7,490,618	China 
20	Chennai	7,450,618	India	 - near an ocean 
21	London	7,421,228	United Kingdom - on a major river
22	Tehran	7,157,993	Iran	
23	Bogota	7,102,602	Colombia	
24	Dhaka	6,488,623	Bangladesh	- on a major river
25	Lahore	6,310,888	Pakistan - on a major river

See: Wikipedia, Thirty most populous cities in the world,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_most_populous_cities_in_the_world>

However, please note that cities have limits that are articificial.
There are estimates - these cannot be accurate - on the population of
the major metropolitan area of the world:

List of metropolitan areas by population 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_most_populous_cities_in_the_world> 

Of those not mentioned before: 
Near a sea or an ocean: Los Angeles, Osaka, Kolkata, Rio de Janeiro, 
On a major river: Cologne, Paris. 

I hope this answers your question. Please contact me if you need any
clarification on this answer before you rate it.

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Request for Answer Clarification by tiesrijcken-ga on 23 Sep 2005 12:37 PDT

well, you can help me some more here. 

first, you havent specified which cities are in delta areas. i can
imagine a problem is to define "delta area". apart from being near a
river and an ocean at the same time, a delta area means a river
branches out when it enters the ocean.

if it is easy to expand to a top 30 (as wikipedia offers), please do so. (I tip 1$)

my request is: explicitly list the cities that are in a delta area.

furthermore, of the delta cities, try to find out which ones have land
beneath sea level, for more than roughly 5% of the surface area. (I
tip 2$)

thanks, Ties

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Clarification of Answer by politicalguru-ga on 23 Sep 2005 13:51 PDT

Dear Ties, 

The only city that is clearly on a delta is the only one mentioned
here as such - Kishansa. The rest are not typical delta cities. I
would think of a typical delta city such as Alexandria (in Egypt),
which is not one of the top 30.

As for your other two questions, and given the fact that you've
already ranked the answer (despite my last sentence: "Please contact
me if you need any
clarification on this answer before you rate it."), these are not the
original questions asked, and I suggest that you'll repost them as new
questions. I'll gladly answer those then.

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Request for Answer Clarification by tiesrijcken-ga on 24 Sep 2005 02:16 PDT

i am sorry, i didnt get it. this is my first google answer action.

so far i am fine.

thanks for your work

TR

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Clarification of Answer by politicalguru-ga on 24 Sep 2005 05:17 PDT

Thank you for your question.

Montreal in Quebec - Canada is an isle on the Saint-Laurent river.