The world's largest cities: 30 urban areas of more than 10 million people
Which is the largest city in the world? The answer depends on what you call a city. Counted as continuous built-up areas, the definition closest to what you see from a plane, 30 cities pass 10 million people. Shanghai comes first with 52.2 million people, ahead of Jakarta and Seoul.
The list
An urban unit is a continuous built-up area: buildings never more than 200 m apart, the city and its real suburbs, whatever the municipal limits. Where a national statistics office publishes such units, SlightlyMap uses its figures exactly as published (INSEE in France, the Census Bureau in the United States, and fourteen other countries). Everywhere else, SlightlyMap computes the units with the same 200 m rule from the European Commission's Global Human Settlement Layer: built-up surface at 100 m and population in 2025.
| # | City | Country | People | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shanghai | China | 52,223,600 | SlightlyMap, from GHSL |
| 2 | Jakarta | Indonesia | 39,416,738 | SlightlyMap, from GHSL |
| 3 | Seoul | South Korea | 26,264,287 | SlightlyMap, from GHSL |
| 4 | Manila | The Philippines | 26,058,142 | SlightlyMap, from GHSL |
| 5 | Cairo | Egypt | 24,015,823 | SlightlyMap, from GHSL |
| 6 | Shenzhen | China | 23,400,434 | SlightlyMap, from GHSL |
| 7 | Dhaka | Bangladesh | 21,801,541 | SlightlyMap, from GHSL |
| 8 | Kolkata | India | 20,732,549 | SlightlyMap, from GHSL |
| 9 | Beijing | China | 20,492,960 | SlightlyMap, from GHSL |
| 10 | Bangkok | Thailand | 20,121,236 | SlightlyMap, from GHSL |
| 11 | Delhi | India | 20,119,576 | SlightlyMap, from GHSL |
| 12 | São Paulo | Brazil | 19,728,819 | SlightlyMap, from GHSL |
| 13 | New York | The United States | 19,426,449 | U.S. Census Bureau |
| 14 | Mumbai | India | 18,807,741 | SlightlyMap, from GHSL |
| 15 | Karachi | Pakistan | 18,559,782 | SlightlyMap, from GHSL |
| 16 | Guangzhou | China | 17,690,152 | SlightlyMap, from GHSL |
| 17 | Ho Chi Minh City | Vietnam | 17,099,995 | SlightlyMap, from GHSL |
| 18 | Bengaluru | India | 14,657,949 | SlightlyMap, from GHSL |
| 19 | Buenos Aires | Argentina | 14,508,883 | SlightlyMap, from GHSL |
| 20 | Moscow | Russia | 14,270,959 | SlightlyMap, from GHSL |
| 21 | Kinshasa | DR Congo | 12,986,018 | SlightlyMap, from GHSL |
| 22 | Lagos | Nigeria | 12,279,032 | SlightlyMap, from GHSL |
| 23 | Los Angeles | The United States | 12,237,376 | U.S. Census Bureau |
| 24 | Luanda | Angola | 12,016,183 | SlightlyMap, from GHSL |
| 25 | Lahore | Pakistan | 11,642,806 | SlightlyMap, from GHSL |
| 26 | Chennai | India | 11,248,646 | SlightlyMap, from GHSL |
| 27 | Lima | Peru | 11,032,038 | SlightlyMap, from GHSL |
| 28 | Paris | France | 11,013,774 | INSEE |
| 29 | Ghāziābād | India | 10,633,751 | SlightlyMap, from GHSL |
| 30 | Bogotá | Colombia | 10,032,057 | SlightlyMap, from GHSL |
Where are Tokyo and Mexico City?
Two famous giants are missing, and the reason is the source, not the size. Japan's official densely inhabited districts are drawn municipality by municipality, so the built-up area of Tokyo is cut into its wards and neighbouring cities: the largest Japanese unit is the ward of Setagaya, with under a million people. Mexico's official localities split Mexico City the same way, by borough. SlightlyMap shows official units as their authors publish them, and says so. Counted otherwise, both are among the very largest: the next table gives the other two measures.
The same question, two other answers
A metro area adds the towns whose workers commute to the city. A dense centre keeps only the contiguous 1 km² cells of more than 1,500 people per km², as measured by satellite. Each measure has its own top ten:
| # | Metro area | People | Dense centre | People |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tokyo (Japan) | 36,271,992 | Guangzhou (China) | 42,987,704 |
| 2 | Delhi (India) | 35,808,201 | Jakarta (Indonesia) | 40,545,126 |
| 3 | Jakarta (Indonesia) | 34,737,329 | Dhaka (Bangladesh) | 37,307,160 |
| 4 | Shanghai (China) | 33,605,863 | Tokyo (Japan) | 33,155,907 |
| 5 | Cairo (Egypt) | 29,937,602 | Delhi (India) | 31,422,508 |
| 6 | Manila (The Philippines) | 29,019,762 | Shanghai (China) | 30,678,616 |
| 7 | Dhaka (Bangladesh) | 26,013,644 | Manila (The Philippines) | 25,921,189 |
| 8 | Seoul (South Korea) | 25,393,602 | Cairo (Egypt) | 25,230,325 |
| 9 | Kolkata (India) | 25,124,433 | Kolkata (India) | 23,314,585 |
| 10 | Mumbai (India) | 24,863,748 | Seoul (South Korea) | 22,261,692 |
Metro areas: INSEE catchment areas in France, Census metropolitan areas in the United States, GHSL functional urban areas elsewhere. Dense centres: GHSL urban centres, 2025 population. Tokyo leads the metro areas with 36.3 million people; Guangzhou the dense centres: its GHSL centre takes in much of the Pearl River Delta.
Play with them
In Place & Name, choose the world, urban units and more than 10 million people: you have to find all 30 on a map with no names. In Rank, put them in order. On the map, Big cities shares out the land between them: from almost anywhere in Africa, the nearest of them is Cairo, Kinshasa, Lagos or Luanda.
Play with these cities Open the map
More in Cities in figures: the world, France, what a city is, and one page per country.