Demographic projections for the urban areas to the year 2050 were taken from Balk et al. (5). For these cities, a time series of population at the city level was obtained from the United Nations (UN), using all information available; for most countries this means a series from 1970 onward. Panel-data regression models (with an allowance for city-specific features captured statistically through random or fixed effects) were used to estimate the historical drivers of city growth and to forecast city populations to 2050. We examined two sets of control variables in these regressions. The first set, producing what we term the Basic Demographic scenario, is based solely on national-level urban rates of fertility and child mortality, city size, and some correction factors to account for how the implicit spatial boundaries of a city have changed over time (using the UN's definitions of city proper, urban agglomeration, and metropolitan region). We augment these controls to produce the Ecological Factors scenario, adding multiple categorical variables for ecosystem (using definitions from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (32) and a low-elevation coastal zone (33). This scenario allows the population of cities in specific biomes (e.g., arid regions) to grow slower or faster to the extent that observed population dynamics have consistently correlated with biome in the past. Note that these demographic projections—which are attached to a spatial reference for 2000—do not include estimates of how urban spatial extents will change by 2050.