You will be given a definition of a task first, then an example. Follow the example to solve a new instance of the task.
Answer the question from the given passage. Your answer should be directly extracted from the passage, and it should be a single entity, name, or number, not a sentence.

Passage: Martin Luther married Katharina von Bora, one of 12 nuns he had helped escape from the Nimbschen Cistercian convent in April 1523, when he arranged for them to be smuggled out in herring barrels. Suddenly, and while I was occupied with far different thoughts, he wrote to Wenceslaus Link, “the Lord has plunged me into marriage. At the time of their marriage, Katharina was 26 years old and Luther was 41 years old. Question: In a letter who did Luther credit for his union with Katharina?
Solution: the Lord
Why? The paragraph clearly states that, Luther has credited the Lord for his union with Katharina, hence the Lord is correct answer.

New input: Passage: Southern California consists of a heavily developed urban environment, home to some of the largest urban areas in the state, along with vast areas that have been left undeveloped. It is the third most populated megalopolis in the United States, after the Great Lakes Megalopolis and the Northeastern megalopolis. Much of southern California is famous for its large, spread-out, suburban communities and use of automobiles and highways. The dominant areas are Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, and Riverside-San Bernardino, each of which is the center of its respective metropolitan area, composed of numerous smaller cities and communities. The urban area is also host to an international metropolitan region in the form of San Diego–Tijuana, created by the urban area spilling over into Baja California. Question: Where does southern California's megalopolis standard in terms of population nationwide?
Solution:
third