List of Metropolitan Areas By Population

Top 5 World's Largest Metropolitan Areas

Tokyo, Japan
Seoul, South Korea
Mexico City, Mexico
New York City, United States
Mumbai, India

One concept which measures the world's largest cities is that of the metropolitan area, which is based on the concept of a labor market area and is typically defined as an employment core (an area with a high density of available jobs) and the surrounding areas that have strong commuting ties to the core. There is currently no generally accepted, globally consistent definition of exactly what constitutes a metropolitan area, thus making comparisons between cities in different countries especially difficult.

One attempt at arriving at a consistently defined metropolitan area concept is the study by Richard Forstall, Richard Greene, and James Pick. The basic principles of their definition involve delineating the urban area as the core, then adding surrounding communities that meet two criteria: (1) Less than 35% of the resident workforce must be engaged in agriculture or fishing; and (2) At least 20% of the working residents commute to the urban core.

Based on their consistently defined metropolitan area criteria, they tabulate a list of the twenty largest metropolitan areas in 2003. As population figures are interpreted and presented differently according to different methods of data collection, definitions and sources, these numbers should be viewed as approximate. Data from other sources may be equally valid but differ due to being measured according to different criteria or taken from different census years.

Rank Metropolitan area Country Population Area (km2) Population Density (People/km2)
1 Tokyo Japan 32,450,000 8,014 4,049
2 Seoul South Korea 20,550,000 5,076 4,048
3 Mexico City Mexico 20,450,000 7,346 2,784
4 São Paulo Brazil 19,889,559 8,479 2,223
5 New York City United States 19,750,000 17,884 1,104
6 Mumbai India 19,200,000 2,350 8,170
7 Jakarta Indonesia 18,900,000 5,100 3,706
8 New Delhi India 18,600,000 3,182 5,845
9 Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto Japan 17,375,000 6,930 2,507
10 Shanghai China 16,650,000 5,177 3,216
11 Manila Philippines 16,300,000 2,521 6,466
12 Hong Kong Hong Kong, China 15,800,000 3,051 5,179
13 Los Angeles United States 15,250,000 10,780 1,415
14 Kolkata India 15,100,000 1,785 8,459
15 Moscow Russia 15,000,000 14,925 1,005
16 Cairo Egypt 14,450,000 1,600 9,031
17 Buenos Aires Argentina 13,170,000 10,888 1,210
18 London United Kingdom 12,875,000 11,391 1,130
19 Beijing China 12,500,000 6,562 1,905
20 Karachi Pakistan 11,800,000 1,100 10,727

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    —Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)

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    —Herman Melville (1819–1891)

    “The planet on which we live is poorly organized, many areas are overpopulated, others are reserved for a few, technology’s potential is only in part realized, and most people are starving.”
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    —Rebecca Latimer Felton (1835–1930)