{"id":3384,"date":"2025-11-26T02:58:18","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T02:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/?p=3384"},"modified":"2025-11-26T02:58:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T02:58:18","slug":"indonesias-jakarta-now-the-worlds-largest-city-tokyo-falls-to-third-un-demographics-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/?p=3384","title":{"rendered":"Indonesia\u2019s Jakarta now the world\u2019s largest city, Tokyo falls to third: UN | Demographics News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p class=\"article__subhead\"><em>Nine of the top 10 mega-cities are in Asia, with Bangladesh\u2019s Dhaka projected to be the world\u2019s largest city by 2050.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div aria-live=\"polite\" aria-atomic=\"true\">\n<p>A new United Nations report has found that Indonesia\u2019s capital Jakarta is the world\u2019s largest city with 41.9 million people living there, followed by Dhaka in Bangladesh, which is home to 36.6 million.<\/p>\n<p>A low-lying coastal city located in the west of the densely populated island of Java, Jakarta rose from second place to replace Tokyo, which had been named the world\u2019s largest city in the UN\u2019s most recent assessment published back in 2000.<\/p>\n<section class=\"more-on\">\n<h2 class=\"more-on__heading\">Recommended Stories<!-- --> <\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">list of 4 items<\/span><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">end of list<\/span><\/section>\n<p>The Japanese capital\u2019s relatively steady population of 33.4 million saw it fall to third place behind Bangladesh\u2019s densely populated capital, Dhaka, which jumped to second place from ninth and is now projected to become the world\u2019s largest city by 2050.<\/p>\n<p>The World Urbanization Prospects 2025 report from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs also found that the number of megacities \u2013 urban areas with more than 10 million inhabitants \u2013 has increased to 33, four times more than the eight megacities that existed worldwide in 1975.<\/p>\n<p>Asia is home to 19 of the world\u2019s 33 megacities, and nine out of the top 10. In addition to Jakarta, Dhaka and Tokyo, the other Asian cities in the top 10 are: New Delhi, India (30.2 million); Shanghai, China (29.6 million); Guangzhou, China (27.6 million); Manila, Philippines (24.7 million); Kolkata, India (22.5 million); and Seoul, South Korea (22.5 million).<\/p>\n<p>With a population of 32 million people, Egypt\u2019s Cairo is the only city in the top 10 that is outside Asia, according to the UN.<\/p>\n<p>Sao Paulo in Brazil, with 18.9 million people, is the largest city in the Americas, while Lagos in Nigeria also grew rapidly, making it the largest city in sub-Saharan Africa.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4131482\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4131482\" style=\"width:770px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-arc-image-770 wp-image-4131482\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/13453720-1764116822.jpg?w=770&amp;resize=770%2C514&amp;quality=80\" alt=\"a family on a three wheeled motorcycle next to a tuk tuk\" fetchpriority=\"low\"\/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-4131482\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">People cross the second Buriganga bridge on rickshaws and motorcycles in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on October 23, 2025 [Monirul Alam\/EPA]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2 id=\"still-growing\">Still growing<\/h2>\n<p>Dhaka\u2019s rapid growth has partly been driven by people from rural areas moving to the capital, searching for opportunities or fleeing hometowns due to problems including flooding and rising sea levels, made worse by climate change.<\/p>\n<p>Jakarta is also facing problems due to rising sea levels. It is estimated that up to one quarter of the city could be under water by 2050.<\/p>\n<p>The problem is so serious that Indonesia\u2019s government is building a new purpose-built capital city in Nusantara in Borneo island\u2019s East Kalimantan province. Yet while the city\u2019s officials and parliamentary buildings will have a new home, the UN estimates that 10 million more people will be living in Jakarta by 2050.<\/p>\n<p>The city\u2019s growing population will also have to contend with concerns over inequality and affordability, which saw thousands of people take to the streets of the Indonesian city earlier this year, reflecting rising anger over the conditions of low-income workers, including app-based motorcycle ride-share and delivery riders.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, according to the UN report, Iran\u2019s capital Tehran, which is facing water rations because it is close to running out of water, currently has a population of nine million people.<\/p>\n<p>The new assessment also saw changes as the UN adopted new measures to try to address inconsistencies in how different countries defined urbanisation.<\/p>\n<p>The UN also said that in most cases its report reflected the size of individual cities, rather than two cities that have grown together, with a small number of exceptions.<\/p>\n<p>The new definition defined a city as a \u201ccontiguous agglomeration\u201d of one-kilometre-square grid cells with a density of at least 1,500 inhabitants per square kilometre and a total population of at least 50,000.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nine of the top 10 mega-cities are in Asia, with Bangladesh\u2019s Dhaka projected to be the world\u2019s largest city by 2050. A new United Nations report has found that Indonesia\u2019s capital Jakarta is the world\u2019s largest city with 41.9 million people living there, followed by Dhaka in Bangladesh, which is home to 36.6 million. A [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}