When Sim City 2000 was first released, memory limitations
in the software resulted in an upper limit to the number
of arcos that would be counted in the total population.
Using only the most densely populated arcos (Launch - 
population 65,000 each) and this memory limitation of 140,
it was possible to build an arco population of 9,100,000.
With the remaining building space, total city population
could be pushed up to around 9,400,000. Extensive use of
the magic eraser trick where you could "reclaim" the arco
building space but retain the population values made it
possible to build cities close to 9,500,000.  The book Sim
City 2000 Power, Politics and Planning then touted the
upcoming version 1.1 upgrade patch that would remove this
140 arco limit and make it possible to build even larger
cities. When this upgrade patch was finally released, not
only was the 140 arco limit still in place, but now the
Launch Arcos would blast off into space before you could
place 140 of them into your city and have them all build
up to their maximum population of 140.  With the release
of Sim City 2000 for Windows, this 140 arco limit has
finally been removed. POP24MIL.SC2 demonstrates that
cities with populations in excess of 24,000,000 are now
possible.  This city was built on an 8MB 486/66 using a
20MB permanent swap file for Windows.  Bear in mind that
if you load this city into the DOS version of SC2K, the
full population will not be reported because of this
memory limitation.  You need to use SC2K4WIN and be
running a large permanent swap file to see the full
population reported by the software.