A new United Nations report shows that Indonesia’s capital Jakarta has become the world’s largest city with 41.9 million people while Bangladesh’s Dhaka ranks second with a population of 36.6 million.
According to the UN’s World Urbanization Prospects 2025 report, Japan’s Tokyo’s population has held fairly steady at 33.4 million, pushing it down to third place while Dhaka, one of the world’s most crowded capitals, climbed from ninth to second and is projected to become the world’s largest city by 2050.
The report highlights Asia’s dominance in global urban growth, with nine of the world’s top 10 megacities located on the continent.
No haat in densely populated areas: DNCC Mayor
Cities joining Jakarta, Dhaka and Tokyo in the top 10 include New Delhi (30.2m), Shanghai (29.6m), Guangzhou (27.6m), Manila (24.7m), Kolkata (22.5m) and Seoul (22.5m).
Egypt’s Cairo with 32 million people is the lone non-Asian city on the list.
Dhaka’s rise has been driven largely by an influx of people fleeing rural areas due to flooding, erosion and other climate-change impacts, as well as those seeking better opportunities, said the report.
Jakarta faces similar pressures, with rising sea levels putting up to one-fourth of the city at risk of submersion by 2050, reports AL Jazeera.
The UN says the number of megacities — those with populations exceeding 10 million — has surged to 33, up from just eight in 1975.
Although Indonesia is constructing a new capital, Nusantara, the UN estimates that Jakarta’s population will continue to grow, adding another 10 million people by mid-century.
The swelling population has fuelled concern over inequality and affordability, issues that have already sparked public protests.
The report also notes that Iran’s capital Tehran, now at nine million people, is struggling with severe water shortages, prompting rationing measures.
In preparing its latest assessment, the UN adopted a new global definition of cities to reduce inconsistencies across countries.
It now classifies a city as a contiguous area of grid cells with at least 1,500 people per square kilometre and a minimum total population of 50,000.
Frequent Earthquakes: Can Dhaka prepare itself for the big one?