[J Flex 188]

Part of the difference in the number of teams versus the actual population size is the make up of the respective school board systems. Compare the population of Toronto (Toronto Proper including the five previous municipalities that merged in the late 1990s) boasts a population of about 2.5 million people. The Greater Toronto Area includes more northerly regions like Markham, Richmond Hill, Durham and York. With this taken into consideration, the GTA area swells to around 5 to 5.5 million people.

A quick search of New York City's population reveals it be around 8.1 million, these two cities both boast strong technological economies and serve as arguably, one of the most important focal points of business in their countries. Yet they have a similiar number of FIRST teams.

Toronto public schools tend to be in the area of an average population of about 1300 students, while many schools are located within 5 to 10 minutes driving distance of each other. Woburn CI for example has at least 4 schools within a 10 minute driving radius, 1 of which was a former FIRST team (1088 SWATT). From my own experiences, American schools tend to be much larger by comparison, with populations closer to 2-3000 per school. But the trend is also being reversed in the GTA with some schools like UHS (a former competitor) and RHHS boasting higher populations. Then there are also the number of private schools and academies to take into consideration.

This is actually a very interesting question to pose, since we always hear about most FIRST teams by state or province, not usually by city.