Ranked: All the Cities in the World Larger Than New York City

Pallavi Rao
2024-11-04 10:33:00
www.visualcapitalist.com

Ranked: All the Cities in the World Larger Than New York City

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This chart ranks the world’s largest urban agglomerations that are more populous than New York City. An urban agglomeration measures the total population living in a continuous urban area, regardless of local administrative boundaries.

The data for this graphic is sourced from the UN’s World Urbanisation Prospects using 2025 estimates. Figures are rounded.

Ranked: World’s Top 20 Largest Cities in 2025

There are nine cities in the world larger than NYC, though the Big Apple is still, by far, the wealthiest.

Tokyo leads the list, currently home to 37 million people, about the same number of people in all of Canada.

Rank	Largest Cities	Country	Population (2025 Estimates)
1	Tokyo	Japan	37.0M
2	Delhi	India	34.7M
3	Shanghai	China	30.5M
4	Dhaka	Bangladesh	24.7M
5	Cairo	Egypt	23.1M
6	São Paulo	Brazil	23.0M
7	Mexico City	Mexico	22.8M
8	Beijing	China	22.6M
9	Mumbai	India	22.1M
10	New York	U.S.	19.2M
11	Osaka	Japan	18.9M
12	Chongqing	China	18.2M
13	Karachi	Pakistan	18.1M
14	Kinshasa	DRC	17.8M
15	Lagos	Nigeria	17.2M
16	Istanbul	Turkey	16.2M
17	Kolkata	India	15.8M
18	Buenos Aires	Argentina	15.8M
19	Manila	Philippines	15.2M
20	Guangzhou	China	14.9M

Interestingly, Tokyo took NYC’s crown in 1954 and has since held on to it despite other rapidly expanding metropolises creeping ever closer.

For example, Delhi, ranked second with nearly 35 million people, is projected to overtake Tokyo by 2028. Another Indian city Mumbai (22 million) is also larger than New York.

Mirroring India, China’s capital, Beijing (23 million), and financial capital, Shanghai, (31 million) both beat NYC as well.

In fact, New York isn’t even North America’s largest city—that distinction belongs to Mexico City, home to 23 million people.

The Big Apple’s listed population, 19.2 million people, might seem incorrect to Americans who live there, and they wouldn’t be entirely wrong. It all depends on what definition of city is considered: the administrative area or the entire urban area?

For example, the population of just the five boroughs (the official city limits) is 8.3 million.

The extra 10 million people are accounted for when looking at the official name of the urban agglomeration: New York–Newark, NY–NJ–CT–PA Combined Statistical Area.

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Large cities are busy and bustling, but what if you’re looking to get away from the crowds? Check out the World’s Most Livable Cities in 2024 for a breakdown.

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