10 Largest Cities in The World

By 2050, nearly 10 billion people will live in the world, two-thirds of whom will live in cities. A network of metropolises around the globe is increasingly expanding as the transition from rural to urban continues. Today, almost half a billion residents live in the world's 10 largest cities, a figure only expected to grow as population areas get taller, more sprawling, and denser.

Posted On November 10th, 2020

Tokyo

Tokyo was called Edo, which translates to 'Eastern Capital,' until Emperor Meiji renamed the Japanese city in 1869. Tokyo was a tiny fishing settlement until the area became a metropolis. Today, the Tsukiji Fish Market is the world's biggest fish market, famous for its tuna auctions, which once sold tuna for $1.7 million. As the largest metropolitan area in the world, Tokyo has a population that accounts for more than a fifth of Japan as a whole.

Delhi

The capital of India and the hub of its administration, Delhi is second in population and first in air pollution. In each of its 1484 square kilometres, it packs over 11,000 residents. And it's rising faster on Earth than about anywhere else. In 2001 alone, "World Population Review states," the population grew by 215,000 due to natural growth and 285,000 due to migration. "Its estimates increased by 3.25 per cent over 2018 this year, but by 2035, it is already on target to achieve a population of over 43 million."

Shanghai

According to the World Population Review, Shanghai is the largest city in the world and one of the fastest-growing for 20 years, experiencing "double-digit growth almost every year since 1992, with the exception of the 2008-2009 global recession." And even if the rate of the growth is slowing, it's still growing. Experts expect that 50 million people will be impacted by the wider urban areas by 2050, which is likely to worsen all the concerns that come with compact cities, such as inadequate infrastructure and pollution.

Sao Paulo

A sophisticated, ethnically diverse world cultural centre that is also, surprisingly, according to Forbes, home to 26 billionaires, is the most populated city in the Americas, with over 11 million residents residing in the city itself. It's also a city with refugees, "writes the World Population Study of a new survey by the University of Sao Paulo," 81% of students said they were descendants of foreign immigrants. While the metropolitan area continues to expand, it is estimated to reach 23 million by 2030, in the last few years, it has actually decreased in rank.

Mexico City

Also, Mexico City is one of the world's most populated and densest. In fact, according to the World Population Review, 20 per cent of the entire population of Mexico lives in Mexico City. Unsurprisingly, growth increases, a rise of almost 3 per cent since 2018, have ensured that the city has had a hard time keeping up with required facilities, such as infrastructure, for its residents.

Cairo

Due to its notable position on the Nile River, Egypt's capital city has been inhabited since at least the 4th century. It has since been rising at a fast rate, according to ThoughtCo, after plagues in the Middle Ages and city-destroying protests in the 1950s. As tallied by the Global Population Analysis, even its central city population is staggeringly high-12 million. Alexandria, Egypt's second-largest city, is a mere 30 per cent of the size of Cairo.

Mumbai

According to National Geographic, India's second-largest metropolitan area has the largest in-city population, with over 13 million at the last official census count in 2011. Its trains hold 6 million people a day alone, a number that shames almost every other busy city. The population of Mumbai has grown over the past 20 years and has literally doubled since 1991, as migrants from rural areas come to the city looking for jobs.

Beijing

The second-largest municipality in China has about as many people as Australia's entire population. And since 1975, the population has not only been growing at a steady clip; it is expected to continue to rise all the way through 2035. One of the extreme downsides of having a huge metropolitan population is that Beijing has some of the poorest breathing air, weighing 52 microns per cubic metre, due to nearby polluting coal plants and automobile traffic. It is running out of the water as well.

Dhaka

With over 23,000 inhabitants per square kilometre and an impressive 2,000 people per day coming into Bangladesh's capital city, Business Insider called Dhaka the most crowded city in the world in 2018. The cause for the influx: plain and simple despair, as natural disasters plagued by climate change wreak havoc on their hometowns and villages. Not unexpectedly, a quarter of Bangladeshis live below the poverty line, with an estimated three million people living alone in Dhaka's slums.

Osaka

The number of people living in the food-centred and third-largest metropolitan region of Japan is currently declining. Since 2018, it has fallen by .3 per cent. Yet nearly 20,000 inhabitants have crammed 27,000 kilometres into the greater Kansai area (which includes the city of Osaka) for some close living quarters. In truth, 7% of the total population of Japan lives in an even smaller area of this country, in the city of Osaka proper and its 42 municipalities.