The World's 150 Mega-Cities

by Tom Kando

It was recently announced in the news that the world’s population is now over 50% urban. To be sure, we may have already reached this milestone a few years ago, depending on how urbanism is measured. Be that as it may, I now want to play with this idea a bit. I used to teach urban sociology, which I find a fascinating  subject. Also, I have lived in or visited several dozen of these mega-cities, and I love large cities.

I consulted a number of  sources to examine  the  current  ranking of the world’s 150 largest metropolises. (World’s Largest Cities;  The 150 Largest Cities of the World;  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_by_populationList of MSAs).

Much has changed since I was young.  When I disembarked from the boat  in America as a Hungarian refugee  in Hoboken, New jersey, staring  in awe at the magic New York skyline, that city was the world’s largest, as was its harbor. In subsequent decades, its harbor was overtaken first by Rotterdam, and then by Shanghai. As to population, New York is now the 10^th largest city in the world.

Table One shows where the world’s 150 largest cities are located, and it ranks  countries on this measure.

Table One. Countries ranked by how many of the world’s 150 largest cities they possess.

Country	Number	Including	population	Rank	continent
1. China	36	Shanghai Beijing Guangzhou  (Canton)	23.7 mill. 20.4 mill. 13.3 mill.	#3 #7 #20	Asia
2. USA	16	New York Los Angeles Chicago	18.6 mill. 12.3 mill.   8.7 mill.	#10 #21 #39	North America
3. India	11	Delhi Mumbai	25.7 mill. 21 mill.	#2 #5	Asia
4. Brazil	10	Sao Paulo Rio de Janeiro	21 mill. 12.9	#4 #19	Latin America
5. Germany	6	Ruhr-Essen	7.3 mill.	#48	Europe
6. Japan	5	Tokyo Osaka	38 million 20.2 mill.	#1 #8	Asia
7. Mexico	3	Mexico City	20.1 mill.	#6	Lat. Am.
8 - 11: Pakistan, Nigeria, Indonesia, Italy	4 x 3	Karachi Lagos Jakarta Rome	16.6 mill. 13.1 mill. 10.3 mill.   3.7 mill.	#12 #17 #27 #113	Asia (2) Africa Europe
12 - 22: Egypt,  Bangladesh, Russia, South Korea Colombia,  South Africa Vietnam,  Saudi Arabia Spain, Canada, Australia	11 x 2	Cairo Moscow Seoul Johannesburg Ho Chi Minh City Riyadh Madrid Toronto Sydney	18.8 mill. 12.2 mill 9.8 mill. 9.4 mill. 7.3 mill. 6.4 mill. 6.2 mill. 6 mill. 4.5 mill.	#9 #22 #33 #36 #51 #56 #60 #62 #95	Asia (4) Europe (2) Afr. (2) Latin Am. North Am. Australia
23-51: 29 countries, each with 1 city: Latin America: Argentina, Peru and Chile                Asia: Turkey, Philippines, Thailand, Iran, Taiwan, Malaysia, Iraq, Singapore, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Israel, Syria Africa:Congo, Angola, Sudan, Tanzania, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya,  Senegal, Morocco, Ethiopia, Cameroon Europe:France, the UK, Holland  and Greece	29 x 1	Buenos Aires Istanbul Manila Tel Aviv Kinshasa Nairobi Paris London Randstad Athens	15.2 mill. 14.2 mill 12.9 mill.   3.6 mill. 11.6 mill   3.9 mill. 10.8 mill. 10.3 mill.   7.1 mill.   3.1 mill.	#13 #15 #18 #120 #23 #107 #25 #29 #52 #148	Lat.Am.:3 Asia: 12 Africa: 10 Europe: 4
Total	150		3-38 mill.

http://www.mongabay.com/cities_pop_01.htmhttp://www.worldatlas.com/citypops.htm

Table One shows that China has by far the largest number of mega-cities (36). The US is still in second place (16) but other enormous countries such as India (11)  and Brazil (10) are catching up fast. If taken as a unit, Europe still has 17 of the world’s largest cities (6 of them in Germany).

Clearly, the Western world went through the industrial revolution during the 19^th century, while the developing world is going through it now.  It is simply catching up with the West.

Japan may be the most urbanized country in the world. Tokyo is still largest city on the globe  - 38 million people, i.e. roughly the population of California!

Table Two  gives  the distribution   of mega-cities by continent.

                         Table Two:Continents, by Population and Share of Mega cities    

Continent	Population	%	Mega-cities	%	number of people per mega-city
World	7.63 billion	100%	150	100%	51 million
Africa	1.22 Billion	16%	17	11%	72 million
Asia	4.44 billion	59%	78	52%	57 million
Europe	739 million	10%	17	11%	43 million
Latin America	639 million	8.4%	18	12%	36 million
North Am.	363 million	5%	18	12%	20 million
Oceania	38 million	.5%	2	1.3%	19 million

Table Two shows that  Asia has by far the largest number of mega-cities (78). However, this does not indicate that it is the most   urbanized continent. In fact, It is less urban than all other continents except Africa. Whereas the world has one mega-city for every 51 million people, Africa  only has one for every 72 million and Asia one for every 57 million. These continents are therefore still less urban than is the world at large. The most urban continent in the world is Australia, with 1 mega-city for every 19 million people, followed by  North America, Latin American  and Europe. In other words, the three continents that make up the Western world are still  more urban than the world at large (as is Latin America).

As I said, the world’s urbanization is now occurring primarily in the developing world - Asia, Africa and Latin America. How rapidly the world is changing becomes vivid to me when I see on my lists the names of  many enormous Chinese, Indian and Brazilian cities of which I haven’t even heard - and I am a pretty good geographer!

I have been in 39 of the world’s mega-cities, from the largest city - Tokyo with 38 million people - to Athens, with a population of  3.1 million. Most of my travel has been in the Western world. I have been in 17 European mega-cities, 17 North-American mega-cities,  2 mega-cities in Asia, 2 in Australia and 1 in Africa.

Here are some of the great and magnificent  cities which I have had the privilege of enjoying:

City	population	rank
Europe: Moscow	12.2 million	22
Paris	10.8	25
London	10.3	29
Randstad	7.1	52
Munich	5.9	63
Saint Petersburg	5	83
Naples	3.7	115
Athens	3.1	148
North America: New York	18.6	10
Toronto	6	62
Miami	5.8	65
Dallas	5.7	68
Washington D.C.	5	84
San Francisco	4.7	89
Boston	4.2	99
Montreal	4	105
Minneapolis-Saint Paul	3.6	127
Australia: Sydney	4.5	95
Melbourne	4.2	100
Asia: Tokyo	38	1
Not even on the List: Europe: Vienna	1.8
Budapest	1.7
Amsterdam	1.1	Part of Randstad
US: Sacramento	2.3	27th MSA in the US

© Tom Kando 2019;All Rights Reserved

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