Which is better?

[Solomwi]

Originally posted by Vince278
I believe future techs count as well.

Yes, but only nominally, IIRC.

[Jonny]

Originally posted by Dissident
How else is score calculated? Land area and population. But anything else?

The mechanics of scoring, and how to maximize it:

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3acad_maxscore.shtml

[Robert]

It doesn't help to eliminate much of the AI's citizen on the last turn, since the end-score is the avg score throughout the entire game.
Lowering the AI's score on just the last turn would hardly harm it's avg score.