World's largest cities

Population tables of world cities

World's largest cities
World's largest cities proper
World's largest municipalities
World's largest urban areas
World's largest metropolitan areas
World's largest conurbations
World's largest urban agglomerations
World megacities
World megalopolises
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This is a list of the world's largest cities in population, ordered by several ranking methods. Determining the world's largest cities depends on which definitions of "city" and "size" are used, and how those definitions are applied. The "size" of a city can refer its land area, but it is more typically the population. How one defines the land area of a city, however, is key to determining its population.

Common methods for defining the boundaries of a city

Urban Area: "City" defined as a physically contiguous urban area, without regard to territorial or other boundaries. The delineation is usually done using some type of urban density, such as population density or density of buildings (for example, "gaps between structures may not exceed 200 metres"). Satellite and/or aerial maps may be used. For statistical convenience, such areas are sometimes adjusted to appropriate administrative boundaries, yielding an agglomeration.

Main articles: List of urban areas by population, List of urban agglomerations by population (United Nations), and List of agglomerations by population

Metropolitan Area: "City" as defined by the habits of its demographic population, as by metropolitan area, labour market area, or similar. Such definitions are usually based on commuting between home and work. Commuter flow thresholds into the core urban area are established by the national census authority, determining which areas are included.

Main article: List of metropolitan areas by population

City Proper (Administrative): "City" as strictly defined by a given government (city proper). Typically based on a municipality or equivalent entity, or sometimes a group of municipalities under a regional government.

Main articles: List of cities proper by population and List of cities proper by population density

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Cities making the top 20 in a list

The numbers after each cell give the ranking of that city in that list. This table is designed to be a way to compare the different lists and discover which cities are well-recognised by all of them, without favouring one list over the others. Rankings in bold are the rankings of the cities in the top 20 of each sources' list. The first four columns are the four different lists used by Wikipedia; after them, external sources are given.

City	Country	Urban Area	Urban Area (UN)	Metropolitan Area	City Proper	WorldAtlas	World Gazetteer	City Population	Proper density
Beijing	China	16	13	19	9	12	23	16
Bogotá	Colombia	31	30		20	30	36	33
Buenos Aires	Argentina	21	13	17	59	10	16	19
Cairo	Egypt	11	17	16	25	17	13	18	45
Delhi	India	2	2	8	4	15	9	5	7
Dhaka	Bangladesh	24	9		24	15	18	20	38
Guangzhou	China	23	28		26	44	61	2
Istanbul	Turkey	19	20		2	23	17	22
Jakarta	Indonesia	4	24	6	12	21	8	11
Karachi	Pakistan	18	10	20	3	18	22	8
Kinshasa	Democratic Republic of the Congo	29	29		17	46	28	31
Kolkata	India	13	8	14	44	9	14	15	10
Lagos	Nigeria	25	18		15	7	19	25
Lima	Peru	30	27		18	26	40	32
London	United Kingdom	32	30	18	19	25	20	24
Los Angeles	United States	15	12	13	47	8	11	12
Metro Manila	Philippines	5	15	11		16	5	10	1
Mexico City	Mexico	9	5	3	10	2	2	7
Moscow	Russia	17	19	15	7	24	15	16
Mumbai	India	6	4	5	2	3	5	1	23
New York City	United States	7	6	4	13	5	3	8
Osaka	Japan	12	16	9		18	12	14
Rio de Janeiro	Brazil	22	14		27	19	24	23
São Paulo	Brazil	8	3	7	6	4	6	9
Seoul	South Korea	3	22	2	8	2	4	3
Shanghai	China	10	7	10	1	6	10	4
Shenzhen	China	14	26	12	11			29
Tehran	Iran	39	35		16	27	21	21
Tianjin	China	44	32		30	20	52	28
Tokyo	Japan	1	1	1	14	1	6	1