Much has been made of the fact that the United States now leads the world in the number of coronavirus cases and deaths – and by a big margin. But comparisons between the US and other hard-hit countries like Italy or Spain are dubious because America is one of the most populous countries in the world. Contrasting the outbreak in the United States with the EU as a whole – which has a comparable combined population size – is therefore a more useful way to understand the scope of the virus and how containment efforts are playing out in comparable contexts. But because the pandemic is most severe in urban areas, we've taken a closer look at how COVID-19 death rates compare between the five most populous cities in the EU and those in the US.