Major cities with little light pollution?

I love living in large cities (from my experiences travelling around the world) but I also love being able to look up at the sky at night and see stars perfectly, even being able to distinguish entire constellations, and capturing the Milky Way when using long exposure photography. Are there any major cities in the world where there is little light pollution and it is possible to see the stars at night (even if it requires a short drive out of the city centre)? I think I’ve heard good things about New Zealand’s cities, like Wellington.

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  • New Zealand has 1 large city (by international standards), Auckland, and 3 by national standards Auckland Wellington & Christchurch.

    Auckland population: ~1.5million
    Wellington population: ~0.4million
    Christchurch population: ~0.4million

    In all 3 centers you can take a short drive out of the cityand stargaze! Christchurch is probably best, if you head just south of the city there are pretty much no smaller towns, Wellington & Auckland are a little bit harder to get away from the light. Sometimes you can even see the southern lights from south of christchurch.

    *** But you might not want to live in Christchurch for a few more years just yet. Until they rebuild from the earthquakes, they have basically no central city area, it makes it feel like a large suburb, rather than a large city***

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