The largest cities in the world, 1975 to 2025
Jakarta, Dhaka, Tokyo and Delhi race for the title of the world's biggest city, using the UN's new 2025 city definitions.
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What the data shows
- In 2025, Jakarta ranks #1 with 41.9M, ahead of Dhaka (36.6M) and Tokyo (33.4M).
- Back in 1975, Tokyo was #1 with 24.3M.
- The top spot changed hands once: Jakarta in 2015.
- Biggest climber: Dhaka, from #10 in 1975 to #2 in 2025.
- Jakarta grew 3.6× between 1975 and 2025.
About this chart
In late 2025 the UN changed how it measures cities. Instead of each country's own boundaries, the World Urbanization Prospects 2025 revision uses the Degree of Urbanization: any contiguous area of at least 50,000 people living at 1,500 or more per square kilometre counts as one city, wherever the administrative lines fall. Applied the same way everywhere, that method puts Greater Jakarta first and Dhaka second, with Tokyo third.
The race is mostly a story about South and Southeast Asia and Africa. Dhaka, Delhi, Manila and Cairo each added well over 15 million people since 1975, while Tokyo, New York and Mexico City grew slowly or plateaued.
The data
Source: UN DESA, World Urbanization Prospects: The 2025 Revision (File 19), population of the world's largest cities, millions, 1975–2025. Retrieved November 3, 2026. Cities as defined by the Degree of Urbanization (contiguous dense areas), so figures differ from city-proper or metro counts.
| Date | 🇮🇩 Jakarta | 🇧🇩 Dhaka | 🇯🇵 Tokyo | 🇮🇳 New Delhi | 🇨🇳 Shanghai | 🇨🇳 Guangzhou | 🇪🇬 Cairo | 🇵🇭 Manila | 🇮🇳 Kolkata | 🇰🇷 Seoul | 🇮🇳 Mumbai | 🇧🇷 São Paulo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1975 | 11.7M | 5.0M | 24.3M | 6.1M | 4.5M | 1.6M | 7.4M | 8.3M | 10.5M | 10.1M | 8.3M | 10.5M |
| 1980 | 14.2M | 6.4M | 25.9M | 7.4M | 4.9M | 2.1M | 8.5M | 9.9M | 11.8M | 12.2M | 9.8M | 13.0M |
| 1985 | 16.8M | 8.4M | 27.2M | 9.2M | 6.3M | 2.7M | 9.8M | 11.7M | 13.2M | 14.4M | 11.2M | 14.1M |
| 1990 | 19.7M | 11.0M | 28.6M | 11.6M | 7.8M | 4.1M | 11.7M | 13.9M | 14.8M | 16.9M | 12.8M | 15.3M |
| 1995 | 22.4M | 13.7M | 29.2M | 14.5M | 10.6M | 9.1M | 13.9M | 16.3M | 16.3M | 17.8M | 14.4M | 16.0M |
| 2000 | 25.6M | 17.4M | 30.3M | 18.0M | 14.0M | 19.0M | 15.7M | 17.8M | 18.4M | 19.0M | 16.0M | 16.7M |
| 2005 | 28.9M | 21.0M | 31.4M | 20.7M | 17.1M | 22.3M | 17.5M | 19.3M | 19.5M | 19.9M | 16.8M | 17.4M |
| 2010 | 32.6M | 24.6M | 32.6M | 23.2M | 20.5M | 24.2M | 19.5M | 21.1M | 20.5M | 20.5M | 17.7M | 18.2M |
| 2015 | 36.1M | 28.3M | 33.1M | 26.1M | 23.8M | 25.3M | 21.6M | 22.7M | 21.3M | 21.5M | 18.3M | 18.7M |
| 2020 | 39.1M | 32.6M | 33.7M | 29.1M | 27.7M | 26.5M | 24.0M | 24.0M | 22.0M | 22.2M | 19.3M | 18.8M |
| 2025 | 41.9M | 36.6M | 33.4M | 30.2M | 29.6M | 27.6M | 25.6M | 24.7M | 22.5M | 22.5M | 20.2M | 18.9M |
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Frequently asked questions
What is the largest city in the world?
In 2025, Jakarta ranks #1 with 41.9M, followed by Dhaka (36.6M) and Tokyo (33.4M). Source: UN DESA, World Urbanization Prospects: The 2025 Revision (File 19), population of the world's largest cities, millions, 1975–2025.
Why isn't Tokyo the largest city anymore?
Older UN rankings used each country's own definition of a metro area, and Tokyo topped them for decades. The 2025 revision measures every city with the same satellite-based density rule. Under that rule the dense, continuous built-up area around Jakarta is larger than Tokyo's, and Tokyo's population is slowly shrinking.
Are these city or metro populations?
Neither exactly. They are 'cities' in the UN's Degree of Urbanization sense: continuous densely populated areas. That is usually bigger than the city proper and smaller than the widest commuter-belt metro definitions, so numbers differ from Wikipedia lists that mix national definitions.
Where does this data come from?
UN DESA, World Urbanization Prospects: The 2025 Revision (File 19), population of the world's largest cities, millions, 1975–2025. Retrieved November 3, 2026. Cities as defined by the Degree of Urbanization (contiguous dense areas), so figures differ from city-proper or metro counts. You can download the full table as a CSV from this page.
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