Megacities

The term "megacity" is used for a city with more than 10 million inhabitants. These cities are developing all over the world, and in 10 years time there will be about 26 megacities in the world. Not many years ago there where more people living in rural areas, but in 2006, for the first time ever in human history, more people were living in urban areas.

All of the megacities that are now building up around the world, are all in developing countries. Of the 26 megacities that are supposed to be in the world in 2006, 22 of them will be in developing countries.

One of the graphs in the book shows that the biggest megacity in the world is Tokyo, Japan with 33.4 million inhabitants, followed by New York City, U.S.A. with 24.1. million and Mexico City, Mexico with 21.7 million. The source of these statistics are Population.Data.net, and they are from 2006. But new statistics from 2011 shows that the list of the 10 biggest megacities has changed drastically. Tokyo is the still the biggest of them all, but the number of inhabitants are now 36.7 million, which is 6.3 million more people living in the same area as when it was less people. New York City is no longer number two; New Dehli, India has taken over the position with 22.2 million people. This means that New York City has less inhabitants now in 2011 than in 2006, and has dropped to number six on the list. Now the number of inhabitants in New York City is 19.4 million.


This is the list over the 10 largest megacities in the world in 2011:

1. Toyko, Japan: 36.7 million
2. Dehli, India: 22.2 million
3. Sao Paolo, Brazil: 20.3 million
4. Mumbai, India: 20.0 million
5. Mexico City, Mexico: 19.7 million
6. New York City, U.S.A.: 19.4 million
7. Shanghai, China: 16.6 million
8. Calcutta, India: 15.6 million
9. Dhaka, Bangladesh: 14.6 million
10. Karachi, Pakistan: 13,1 million

(Source)


The fastest growing megacity in the world is in fact Dhaka in Bangladesh. In 2006 it wasn't on the list over the 10 largest megacities in the world, but in 2011 it is in the ninth place. In 2025 it is supposed to have as many inhabitants as 20.9 million, which is an 6.3 million increase in 14 years. Other fast growing megacities are Mumbai with a supposed 25.8 million inhabitants in 2025, Shanghai with 20 million in 2025 and Calcutta with 20.1 million.
India is definitely a country where many megacities are developing. Dehli is a megacity, an d Mumbai and Calcutta are two other cities becoming megacities.

The urban population is continuing to grow, as the rural population is sinking. Take Europe for instance, in 1995 there were 209 millions who were a part of the rural population and 518 millions of the urban population. In 2015 statistics estimate the number to be 188 millions of the rural population and 532 millions of the urban population. The other parts of the world shows the same thing, urban population will grow increasingly in the years to come. In 1800, only 2% of the world were called an urban population. In 2000, 47% of the world were an urban population and the number in 2030 are estimated to be 60 %. That's a 6/10 of the earth.


Basically, the world will in the future be dominated by megacities and urban populations. The grow of them both continuous fast, and maybe someday 100% of the world will be what we call urban population?