This mod replaces the "Fudged population" and instead puts the real one. Many people have made this mod but it seems they haven't uploaded it here so I'm uploading it here. As you can see in the examples. A city of 120,000, the real population is only 18,000. See the diffrence

credits

Various redditors for discovering that the population was fudged and explaining how to make it.

Oppie for his SimcityPak

And of course Maxis for its wonderful game

Note: MOD DOES NOT WORK WITH THE GLOBAL MARKET MOD