Largest Cities in the World

If you are one of those individuals finding it difficult to determine which are the largest cities in the world owing to the broad criteria associated with the concept of 'city', the following information will clear all your doubts about the same.
According to the United Nations, urbanization is a global phenomenon marked by the movement of people from rural areas to urban areas, with population growth of urban areas corresponding urban migration. When we talk about urbanization, we indirectly refer to the growth of cities. In simple words, a 'city' is defined as a large and densely populated urban area. The technical definition of the same though gets into several other details of the concept such as population, area, etc. When determining which are the largest cities in the world, we need to go by the technical definition which states that the city is a physically contiguous urban area with no regards to territorial or administrative boundaries.

Largest Cities in the World: Methodology
The two aspects of urbanization which need to be taken into consideration when determining which are the largest cities of the world are population and area. Shanghai is the largest city in the world on the basis of population, whereas Hulunbuir (China) is the largest city on the basis of geographical extent. Given below are the details of the ten largest cities on the basis of population as well as geographical extent in form of tables.

Top 10 Largest Cities in the World by Population
As people continue to flock to cities which provide better opportunities, the population of these cities continue to swell. Approximately, 47 percent of the world population (which crossed the six billion barrier in 2008) resides in cities. The rate at which the population of these cities is growing, it wouldn't be surprising if the number of city dwellers crosses the five billion mark (which would constitute 60 percent of the world population then) by 2030. Given below is the list of top ten cities of the world in terms of population. An interesting point to note here is that none of the largest cities in the US feature in the top ten largest cities of the world.

Rank City Population
1 Shanghai (China) 13,831,900
2 Mumbai (India) 13,830,884
3 Karachi (Pakistan) 12,991,000
4 Delhi (India) 12,565,901
5 Istanbul (Turkey) 11,372,613
6 São Paulo (Brazil) 11,037,593
7 Moscow (Russia) 10,508,971
8 Seoul (South Korea) 10,464,051
9 Beijing (China) 10,123,000
10 Mexico City (Mexico) 8,841,916

Top 10 Largest Cities in the World by Area
Incessant rise in the population of these cities is also contributing to the phenomenon of urban sprawl. When a city becomes congested it has to spread either horizontally (at the outskirts) or vertically (by means of sky scrapers). As cities grow horizontally, the geographical areas of these cities automatically increases. Over the time, the suburban areas in the surroundings are engulfed and city becomes bigger. In most of the cases, the new parts of the city have a better infrastructure as compared to older regions. Basically, these cities continue to grow as long as influx of population continues. Given below is the list of top ten cities of the world in terms of geographical area.

Rank City Population
1 Hulunbuir (China) 101,913
2 Altamira (Brazil) 61,659
3 City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder (Australia) 36,901
4 Chongqing (China) 31,815
5 Wood Buffalo, Alberta (Canada) 24,456
6 Leh (India) 17,417
7 City of Mount Isa (Queensland) 17,606
8 Porto Velho (Brazil) 13,159
9 La Tuque, Quebec (Canada) 11,466
10 Yakutat City and Borough, Alaska (United States) 9,459

These were the top ten largest cities in the world in terms of population as well as area. By 2050, the world population is estimated to cross the 9 billion mark (9,000,000,000). As far as the urban population is concerned, it has experienced a tremendous increase over the last century (220 million at the beginning of the century to 2.8 billion at the end). The rate at which urbanization is occurring, is just expected to rise in the future. This will result in swelling of existing cities and rise in the number of new cities. As urbanization will increase, the problems associated with it will also increase. Even though we can't simply finish off these problems of urbanization, we can at least minimize the impact of these challenges of urbanization by means of sustained urban planning.
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Published: 7/10/2010
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