Which city is most likely to be a major population center?

-Yazard, in the desert of central Iran
-Kars, located in mountainous eastern Turkey
-Mashad, in a valley in northeastern Iran
-Galata, in the cool mountain highlands of Cyprus

3 answers

Have you googled each one in http://maps.google.com yet?

What do you think?
I'd look first at the population of each one right now.

http://www.google.com/#q=yazd+iran

http://www.google.com/#q=kars+turkey

http://www.google.com/search?q=mashad+iran&oq=mashad+iran&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.2254j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=119&ie=UTF-8

http://www.google.com/search?q=galata+cyprus&oq=galata+cyprus&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.5502j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=119&ie=UTF-8
Deserts and mountains are not usually heavily populated.