TRANTOR?..At  the beginning  of the  thirteenth millennium,  this tendencyreached its  climax¹. As the center of  the Imperial Government for unbrokenhundreds of generations and  located, as it was, toward the central regionsof the  Galaxy² among  the most densely³ populated  and industrially advancedworlds of the system,  it could scarcely help being the densest⁴ and richestclot of humanity the Race had ever seen.
Its urbanization,  progressing steadily⁵, had finally  reached the ultimate.
All the  land surface of Trantor, 75,000,000 square  miles in extent, was asingle city.  The population,  at its height,  was well in  excess of fortybillions.  This  enormous population  was  devoted⁶ almost  entirely⁷ to  theadministrative necessities of Empire,  and found themselves all too few forthe  complications  of  the   task.  (It  is  to  be  remembered  that  theimpossibility  of proper  administration of  the Galactic Empire  under theuninspired leadership  of the  later Emperors was a  considerable factor inthe  Fall.) Daily,  fleets of ships  in the  tens of thousands  brought theproduce of  twenty agricultural worlds to  the dinner tables of Trantor....
Its  dependence  upon  the  outer worlds  for  food  and,  indeed, for  allnecessities of  life, made  Trantor increasingly vulnerable  to conquest bysiege.  In the  last millennium  of the  Empire, the  monotonously⁸ numerousrevolts made  Emperor after Emperor conscious  of this, and Imperial policybecame  little  more  than the  protection  of  Trantor's delicate  jugularvein....

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