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Thank you for downloading the more or less podcast from the BBC World Service.

We're your weekly guide to the numbers in the news, in life, and in canals.

Regular listeners will already have heard the one we made recently about how the Panama

Canal was built, and whether Donald Trump's claim was true that 35,000 Americans died

in the process. This week, there's more canals business.

A list there in England called Kate wrote to the programme at more or less at bbc.co.uk,

saying...

My husband, Hal's from Birmingham, and ever since we met, he's been keen to

extoll the myriad virtues of England's second city. Chief among the claims to fame is this.

Birmingham has more miles of canal than Venice. So I must know, is my husband's assertion true?

And if it is, are there any other cities in the world that have even more canals

that I can come back to him with?

So this story about Birmingham having more miles of canals than Venice, what's so controversial about it?

Well, it's this. Can it possibly be true that Venice...

That Venice, the world's most famous canal city,

has fewer miles of canals to boast about than Birmingham, a post-industrial city in the British Midlands.

Well, let's start with some actual facts. The municipal authority that runs Venice

says that in the main city area and the three other main tourist islands nearby that it also controls,

Murano, Burano and Torcello, they're at 55.84 kilometres of canals.

So that's the target to beat. And on its website, Birmingham City Council says there are 35

miles of canals within its jurisdiction. That's 56 kilometres. So if we go by those figures,

...