Metropolitan areas include a central city and neighboring communities linked to it by continous built-up areas or many commuters. Some metropolitan areas have more than one central city. Based on censuses, estimations, and best possible projections. I update this approximately every six months.
 Projected 5/11/02

    Name                          Population     Remarks
  1 Tokyo                           34900000     incl. Yokohama, Kawasaki
  2 New York                        21600000     incl. Newark, Paterson
  3 Soul (Seoul)                    21150000     incl. Inchon, Songnam
  4 Ciudad de México                20750000     incl. Nezahualcóyotl, Ecatepec, Naucalpan
  5 São Paulo                       20250000     incl. Guarulhos
  6 Mumbai (Bombay)                 18150000     incl. Kalyan, Thane, Ulhasnagar
  7 Osaka                           18000000     incl. Kobe, Kyoto
  8 Delhi                           17150000     incl. Faridabad, Ghaziabad
  9 Los Angeles                     16800000     incl. Riverside, Anaheim
 10 Jakarta                         15850000     incl. Bekasi, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang
 11 Al-Qahirah [Cairo, Kairo]       15100000     incl. Al-Jizah, Shubra al-Khaymah
 12 Kolkata (Calcutta)              14550000     incl. Haora
 13 Buenos Aires                    13700000     incl. San Justo, La Plata
 14 Manila                          12800000     incl. Kalookan, Quezon City
 15 Moskva [Moskau]                 13200000
 16 Karachi                         12300000
 17 Rio de Janeiro                  12250000     incl. Nova Iguaçu, São Gonçalo
 18 Shanghai                        12200000
 19 London                          11850000
 20 Tehran [Teheran]                11050000     incl. Karaj
 21 Istanbul                        11000000
 22 Dhaka (Dacca)                   10350000
 23 Paris                            9800000
 24 Chicago                          9400000
 25 Lagos                            9250000
 26 Beijing [Peking]                 9200000
 27 Lima (Lima Metropolitana)        7900000
 28 Washington                       7850000     incl. Baltimore
 29 Bogotá, Santa Fe de              7700000
 30 Krung Thep [Bangkok]             7500000
 31 Johannesburg                     7450000     incl. Soweto, East Rand, West Rand
 32 T'aipei [Taipeh]                 7400000
 33 San Francisco                    7250000     incl. Oakland, San Jose
 34 Chongqing                        7200000
 35 Chennai (Madras)                 7100000
 36 Xianggang (Hong Kong, Victoria)  6950000     incl. Kowloon
 37 Kinshasa                         6600000
 38 Lahore                           6500000
 39 Bangalore                        6350000
 40 Philadelphia                     6300000
 41 Hyderabad                        6150000
 42 Ruhr                             6050000
 43 Al-Khartum [Khartoum]            5950000
 44 Boston                           5900000
 45 Detroit                          5850000     incl. Windsor (Canada)
 46 Tianjin                          5750000 
 47 Sankt-Peterburg (Leningrad)      5550000
 48 Dallas                           5500000     incl. Fort Worth
 49 Santiago                         5450000
 50 Madrid                           5150000

Brackets indicate alternate names/spellings.
Parentheses indicate former names which may still be in use.

Notable changes since last time: More accurate third world estimates once again caused minor chnages. Most significantly, Mumbai moved up from 8 to 6, Delhi moved up from 14 to 8, Khartoum dropped from 30 to 43, Lagos moved up from 31 to 25, and Johannesburg moved up from 36 to 31. Madrid is new on the list, and Toronto has fallen off of it.


Data from: "Th. Brinkhoff: Principal Agglomerations and Cities of the World, http://www.citypopulation.de, 11.05.2002".
HTML and links by Uberfetus using BBEdit. /msg for additional information, or to report new links or corrections.

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