Largest Cities by Population 2024

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What are the most populated cities in the world? Here is a list of the top ten most populated cities in the world:

City
Country
Population
TokyoJapan37,115,035
DelhiIndia33,807,403
ShanghaiChina29,867,918
DhakaBangladesh23,935,652
Sao PauloBrazil22,806,704
CairoEgypt22,623,874
Mexico CityMexico22,505,315
BeijingChina22,189,082
MumbaiIndia21,673,149
OsakaJapan18,967,459

It is perhaps unsurprising that the majority of the most populous cities in the world are in the two most populated countries in the world, China and India. Among these are Shanghai and Beijing in China, with populations of 29.9M and 22.2M million respectively, along with Delhi (33.8M), and Mumbai (21.7M) in India.

However, Tokyo is the largest city in the world if the entire Tokyo metro area is included, with a total of 37.1M residents. Another Japanese city, Osaka, also has a very large population of 19M. There are also a number of non-Asian cities with high populations, including Mexico City (22.5M), Cairo (22.6M), and Buenos Aires (15.6M).

Of the European cities, Istanbul is the most populous, with 16M residents. This is followed by Moscow (12.7M) and Paris (11.3M). These cities are of course also culturally significant and between them they welcome millions of tourists each year.

There are quite a number of popular and culturally rich cities that have smaller populations, often making for higher living standards for their residents. Barcelona, Sydney, Berlin and Vancouver all have fewer than five million residents, but are very popular choices for city living. There are also some comparatively very small cities with big cultural, historical or political reputations, such as Sarajevo (314,000), Edinburgh (502,000), and Venice (631,000), demonstrating that small cities can be highly significant regardless of the size of their population.

Largest Cities by Population 2024

World City Listing Articles

World Cities by First Letter

  1. World Urbanization Prospects - United Nations population estimates and projections of major Urban Agglomerations

Sources