To understand the most important characteristics of a society, one must study its major cities.

I do believe that one must look into the major cities to know the most important characteristics of a society on the grounds that major overcrowded cities are the best epitomes of their societies.

To begin with, I think the most important element of large cities is that they have large populations, which makes it so easy to know the overall trend of a particular society in many things. A large community makes it perceivable that how much a society is committed and dedicated to the rules, their living environment, time, manners, and discipline and so on. For example, in a large city like Tokyo, there are a lot of crowded bus or metro stations with people standing in lines to get on the next bus or train. From these well-ordered queues, it is completely obvious that how much qualities like orderliness and neatness prevail in Japan society. Or the fluent flow of traffic there is redolent of reverent air toward law and others' rights. While in another large city such as Tehran, the chaos in the streets, and the subsequent noise and air pollution, suggests that people there do not care about rules, and each other. Unlike big cities, in small towns, people are widely scattered throughout the town and it is barely feasible to make a general conclusion by observing small groups of people wandering around.

Secondly, in order to get a true idea about a society, it is essential to consider the whole society, and in that respect, large cities having assimilated people from around the country stand as the best representatives of their whole society. While small towns with almost merely native population of that specific region, usually fail to fulfill this criteria. Besides, small communities have many minor peculiarities that overshadow the important characteristics, and differentiate them from the other small cities even their neighbor ones.

On the other hand, sometimes to understand a society, especially when it comes to its conventions, it is best to scrutinize the small cities, since there is still traces of national culture and tradition in them. While in metropolises, they have long ago faded away, and with the widespread globalization, cosmopolitan cities are all becoming more or less similar to each other.

All in all, dense and diverse population of major cities makes them favorable places for studying a society.