What is the largest city in the world by population and area?
The United Nations estimates the world will reach a total population of eight billion on Nov. 15th, 2022. With the current population growth, the U.N. also estimates the global population will reach 8.5 billion in 2030 and 9.7 billion in 2050.
The United States Census estimates there are about 331 million people living in the United States alone. According to Worldometers.com, China with nearly 1.5 billion people has the largest population in the world as of August 2022.
Country by country and city by city the population differs drastically, but what is the largest city in the world?
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Predicted population:UN: Global population to reach 8 billion this year, India to become most populated country
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What is the largest city in the world?
According to the World Populations Review, the top 10 largest cities by population:
- Tokyo, Japan – 37,435,191 people
- Delhi, India – 29,399,141 people
- Shanghai, China – 26,317,104 people
- São Paulo, Brazil – 21,846,507 people
- Mexico City, Mexico – 21,671,908 people
- Cairo, Egypt – 20,484,965 people
- Dhaka, Bangladesh – 20,283,552 people
- Mumbai, India – 20,185,064 people
- Beijing, China – 20,035,455 people
- Osaka, Japan – 19,222,665 people
What is the largest city in the world by area?
Unlike measuring population, determining the largest city in the world by area is a less straight-forward exercise. Each country has its own definition of what constitutes a city, making a standard measurement for the largest city by area harder to determine. For example, the World Population Review says the city of Sermersooq in Greenland is, by their standard of measurement for a city, over 205,400 square miles for a population of 23,123 people.
To combat the inconsistency across countries, Demographia created a standardization to measure cities called Urban Area that factors population density in determining the area of cities. In using Urban Area as a form of measurement, it groups cities and areas together, so the top 10 largest cities by area are not the individual cities themselves but rather groups of cities within proximity as determined by Demographia.
According to the World Populations Review, based off reports from Demographia, the top 10 largest cities in terms of square miles:
- New York-Newark – 4,669
- Boston-Providence – 3,683
- Tokyo-Yokohama – 3,178
- Atlanta – 2,857
- Chicago – 2,705
- Los Angeles – 2,452
- Moscow – 2,274
- Washington-Baltimore – 2,124
- Philadelphia – 2,096
- Dallas-Fort Worth – 2,038
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