This is the list where I attempt to rank the 25 largest cities (by population) in the world. This is NOT a list of my favourite cities in the world... that will come later.

Despite what we usually assume, the definition of a city is not commonly agreed upon around the world. More importantly, it gets hazy where a city ends, and where another begins. Obviously there are such things as administrative borders between municipalites, but they mean absolutely nothing when ranking city metros based on population. For example, if we were to rank the largest cities in the world based on municipality population, Saanich would rank higher on the list than Victoria, and San Jose would rank higher than San Francisco. Obviously then, metro areas are the best way to judge a cities true size, seeing how they seem to engulf any neighbouring towns that lie in the path of their sprawling suburbs.

In Canada, we have our own definition of a metro area. In the USA, they have their own as well. In fact, every country in the world has their own definition of a metro area... and they are all different. This is why almost every list I've ever read about the largest cities in the world has been unreliable. The data is so inconsistent that I can't help but disagree.

Earlier this year I decided to work on a set of worldwide guidelines to help define a city metro, and have been working to build this list ever since. This list will be of little to no interest to absolutely anyone except me, but I am glad to have it finally finished. My guidelines were kind of complex, and hard to follow in countries with little available data (China, Africa, etc.). But generally, I only regarded continious built-up urban areas as a city metro. I made exceptions for satellite cities where a heavy majority of the population work in the core city.

Anyways, here is the list...
Sorry for the crappy pictures but I was too lazy to find better ones and I mostly went with the one that best showed how big the city is, opposed to how nice it may (or may not) look:


Top 25 Most Populous City Metropolitan Areas in the World

1. Tokyo

35 million
Tokyo, the capital of Japan, has been the largest city in the world since the 60's when it overtook NYC. Since then, it has been a runaway lead. Made up of hundreds of cities, the population of Greater Tokyo is the same as all of Canada's. Tokyo is the undisputed largest city in the world, and it is only after ..1 that every "largest cities in the world" list begins to differ.

2. City of New York

21.5 million
NYC is the most unique 'huge' city the world since it is made up of many different people groups who moved there in the past 3 centuries. It was very easy to accumulate metro data for NYC as the United States conduct one of the best census' in the world.

3. Ciudad de México

20.5 million
Mexico City sprawls over the Valley of Mexico, the former location of Lake Texcoco and Tenochtitlan. Mexico City did not exist until the Spanish conquered Mexico and has since then been the hub and capital of the country.

4. Seoul

19.5 million
Seoul, the capital of South Korea also happens to be the heart and soul of all of Korea. One of the hardest cities to collect data for, most lists rank Seoul much further down and claim it has anywhere from 10 to 30 million people in the metro area.

5. São Paulo

19 million
São Paulo, located in inland southeastern Brazil is another sprawling 'new' city. The city is mostly comprised of pooly built low-cost highrises that spread across the horizon.

6. Mumbai (formerly Bombay)

18.5 million
Mumbai is India's most important port and although not the government's seat of power, it is India's largest city and economic/financial capital.

7. Jakarta

17 million
Jakarta, located on the western end of Java, is the capital of Indonesia. This was another city that was very diffucult to collect data for since no official census has taken place in 6 years and when it did take place, it only counted it's "proper" residents, and not the millions of people living in illegal slums.

8. Delhi

17 million
Delhi, strategically located in central India has been one of the country's most important cities for thousands of years. India's modern capital, New Delhi, is located within the metro area of Delhi.

9. Los Angeles

16.5 million
L.A., the largest city in California (and second largest city in the USA), is usually shown as an example when discussing post-war North American sprawl... and it's easy to see why. The city itself has a population of 4 million people, and the rest of the metro's population is made up from the sprawling suburbs, with the odd city in there such as Long Beach.

10. Osaka

16.5 million
Osaka is located is central Japan and was historically the country's most important commercial centre until the late 20th century when power shifted to Tokyo. Osaka's metro area encompasses Kyoto and Kobe as well, two large and important cities.

11. Shanghai

15 million
Until the British takeover of Hong Kong, Shanghai was the West's principal link to China. Today, however, Shanghai is one of the world's most modern cities and probably the most 'futuristic-looking' after Dubai.

12. al-Qahirah

14.5 million
Despite being the modern capital of the most important country in the ancient world, Cairo has only existed for roughly 1000 years. Regardless, it has grown to be Egypt's most populous city, overshadowing the ancient greats such as Memphis within the metro border.

13. Kolkata (formerly Calcutta)

14.5 million
Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal, is Mumbai's twin port in Eastern India. The city drapes the banks of the Hooghly River, one of the many distributary arms of the mighty Ganges. Calcutta was the most important Indian city during British Rule but lost some power after India gained it's independence and split up.

14. City of Manila

14.5 million
Manila is not only the government's seat of power in the Philippines, but within the metro's borders is Makati; the financial capital of the Philippines as well.

15. Buenos Aires

13.5 million
Beunos Aires, the capital of Argentina, is the Paris of the South. BUE resembles a grand European city, but acts more like a North American city in terms of demographic trends.

16. Moskva

13 million
Moscow is the capital of Russia and the largest city in Europe. It has long been the hub of Russian culture and was the centre of communism during the Cold War.

17. Beijing (formerly Peking)

12 million
The capital of China since 1420 (with some minor moves along the way), Beijing has been in the spotlight recently as it prepares to host the 2008 Summer Olympics. Beijing was originally restricted from expansion by a series of moats surrounding the city, but today continues to expand futher and further from the old moats.

18. Karachi

12 million
Karachi, Pakistan's major port, is also the country's most important city. The fact that the capital of Pakistan was moved to the planned city of Islamabad in 1960 did not hinder Karachi's growth or importance.

19. Chongqing

12 million
Chongqing is situated in central China, west of the populous coastal plain. It's location in the Sichuan Basin (which is surrounded an all sides by high mountains) causes fog and smog at all times throughout the year. This was a tough city to estimate the population of, since the municpality of Chongqing contains 30 million people, but nearly all of them far removed from the metro area of Chongqing.

20. Teheran

12 million
Tehran is the capital of powerful Iran. This hub city is seperated from the Caspian Sea by the mighty Elburz Mountains.

21. Dhaka (formerly Dacca)

11.5 million
Dhaka was the capital of East Bengal, which seperated from India to become East Pakistan, which likewise split from Pakistan to become Bangladesh. Now Dhaka is the hub, largest, and most important city of Bangladesh.

22. Rio de Janeiro

11.5 million
Rio de Janeiro has until only recently been the most important and largest city in Brazil. Founded by Portugal in 1565, the city was Brazil's capital from the 18th century to 20th century. In an odd event in history, the Portuguese government actually moved the Portuguese Empire's seat of power to Rio for a brief period in the early 1800's in retreat of Napolean Bonaparte's invasions.

23. London

11.5 million
London - along with Paris - have been the two most important cities in Western Europe since medieval times. London is the hub of England as well as the capital of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

24. Lagos

11.5 million
Lagos is the largest city and former sprawling capital of Nigeria. Lagos is one of the fastest growing cities in the world with many people not owning the property they live on, but squatting. The exact population of Lagos may never be known, but I am confident my estimate of it's population is quite accurate.

25. Istanbul (formerly Constantinople)

11 million
Istanbul straddles the Bosporus in Western Turkey and therefore is technically on both the continents of Europe and Asia. Istanbul has been hugely important in history, as Constantinople during the Ottoman and Byzantine Empires, and as Byzantium during the Roman Empire and Greek times. Had Constantinople not been sacked in 1453 the history of Western Civilization would have been completely altered.



Alright then, I also had a little fun and made a prediction of the world's largest cities in 2050. I took into account all current and future predicted population trends, including North America and Europe's stagnant growth, China and Japan's peak growth, and South Asia and Africa's booming growth.
Here be my list!

Top 25 Most Populous City Metropolitan Areas in 2050:
1. Tokyo, Japan (41 million)
2. Mumbai, India (33 million)
3. Seoul, South Korea (30 million)
4. Jakarta, Indonesia (29 million)
5. Ciudad de México, Mexico (29 million)
6. Dhaka, Bangladesh (28 million)
7. Delhi, India (28 million)
8. NYC, USA (28 million)
9. Shanghai, China (27 million)
10. Lagos, Nigeria (26 million)
11. Los Angeles, USA (26 million)
12. São Paulo, Brazil (26 million)
13. Kolkata, India (25 million)
14. Karachi, Pakistan (24 million)
15. Osaka, Japan (23 million)
16. Tehran, Iran (21 million)
17. Manila, Philippines (20 million)
18. Cairo, Egypt (20 million)

One thing I did not take into account while making these predictions however, was the possibility of merging metro areas. If I did, it is quite likely NYC and Philadelphia will merge into one giant metro area in the future, which would put it in 2nd place after Tokyo I believe. Another frightening possibility is that Guangzhou (formerly Canton), Shenzhen, and Hong Kong could all merge into a massive Pearl River Delta Metro which could comprise of over 50 million people.