Over the nine chapters, Marco describes a total of fifty-five cities, all women's names. The cities are divided into eleven thematic groups of five each:
- Cities & Memory
- Cities & Desire
- Cities & Signs
- Thin Cities
- Trading Cities
- Cities & Eyes
- Cities & Names
- Cities & the Dead
- Cities & the Sky
- Continuous Cities
- Hidden Cities
He moves back and forth between the groups, while moving down the list, in a rigorous mathematical structure. The table below lists the cities in order of appearance, along with the group they belong to:
| Chapter no. | Memory | Desire | Signs | Thin | Trading | Eyes | Names | Dead | Sky | Continuous | Hidden |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Diomira | ||||||||||
| Isidora | |||||||||||
| Dorothea | |||||||||||
| Zaira | |||||||||||
| Anastasia | |||||||||||
| Tamara | |||||||||||
| Zora | |||||||||||
| Despina | |||||||||||
| Zirma | |||||||||||
| Isaura | |||||||||||
| 2 | Maurilia | ||||||||||
| Fedora | |||||||||||
| Zoe | |||||||||||
| Zenobia | |||||||||||
| Euphemia | |||||||||||
| 3 | Zobeide | ||||||||||
| Hypatia | |||||||||||
| Armilla | |||||||||||
| Chloe | |||||||||||
| Valdrada | |||||||||||
| 4 | Olivia | ||||||||||
| Sophronia | |||||||||||
| Eutropia | |||||||||||
| Zemrude | |||||||||||
| Aglaura | |||||||||||
| 5 | Octavia | ||||||||||
| Ersilia | |||||||||||
| Baucis | |||||||||||
| Leandra | |||||||||||
| Melania | |||||||||||
| 6 | Esmeralda | ||||||||||
| Phyllis | |||||||||||
| Pyrrha | |||||||||||
| Adelma | |||||||||||
| Eudoxia | |||||||||||
| 7 | Moriana | ||||||||||
| Clarice | |||||||||||
| Eusapia | |||||||||||
| Beersheba | |||||||||||
| Leonia | |||||||||||
| 8 | Irene | ||||||||||
| Argia | |||||||||||
| Thekla | |||||||||||
| Trude | |||||||||||
| Olinda | |||||||||||
| 9 | Laudomia | ||||||||||
| Perinthia | |||||||||||
| Procopia | |||||||||||
| Raissa | |||||||||||
| Andria | |||||||||||
| Cecilia | |||||||||||
| Marozia | |||||||||||
| Penthesilea | |||||||||||
| Theodora | |||||||||||
| Berenice |
In each of the nine chapters, there is an opening section and a closing section, narrating dialogues between the Khan and Marco. The descriptions of the cities lie between these two sections.
The matrix of eleven column themes and fifty-five subchapters (ten rows in chapters 1 and 9, five in all others) shows some interesting properties. Each column has five entries, rows only one, so there are fifty-five cities in all. The matrix of cities has a central element (Baucis). The pattern of cities is symmetric with respect to inversion about that center. Equivalently, it is symmetric against 180 degree rotations about Baucis. Inner chapters (2-8 inclusive) have diagonal cascades of five cities (e.g. Maurila through Euphemia in chapter 2). These five-city cascades are displaced by one theme column to the right as one proceeds to the next chapter. In order that the cascade sequence terminate (the book of cities is not infinite!) Calvino, in chapter 9, truncates the diagonal cascades in steps: Laudomia through Raissa is a cascade of four cities, followed by cascades of three, two, and one, necessitating ten cities in the final chapter. The same pattern is used in reverse in chapter 1 as the diagonal cascade of cities is born. This strict adherence to a mathematical pattern is characteristic of the Oulipo literary group to which Calvino belonged.
