This point shapefile depicts point symbols with name attributes for populated areas worldwide, including some capitals, major cities and town and smaller towns in sparsely inhabited regions. LandScan derived population estimates are provided for 90% of cities. The other 10% are often towns in sparsely inhabited areas. Populations fewer than 200 persons per square kilometer were removed from this layer and classified as rural. Population totals account for the "metropolitan" population rather than it's administrative boundary population. Regional significance was favored over population census in determining the selection of places. Scale rankings can be used to filter the number of towns that appear on a map. These data are represented at 1:10,000,000 scale. This layer is part of the Natural Earth Collection (v.2.0.0). Natural Earth is a public domain map dataset available at 1:10, 1:50 and 1:110 million scales. Featuring tightly integrated vector and raster data, with Natural Earth you can make a variety of visually pleasing, well-crafted maps with cartography or GIS software.