50 Largest Cities in the World 2020

Before going through the 50 largest cities in the World, let us understand what is meant by a city and how are they organised.  

Defination: A city is a permanent and densely settled place with a large human settlement, where its geographical boundaries are administratively defined. Employment primarily depends on non-agricultural tasks. 

Cities generally have extensive systems for housing, transportation, sanitation, utilities, land use, and communication.

Every country has its criteria to classify the cities in their geographical region. United Nations is the principal organ which uses different definitions of a city to organise them. Cities can be explained by the extent of their urban area, or their metropolitan regions. 

The largest city based on its population using the area under its administrative boundaries of a local government, is Chongqing, China. 

The largest city by population by the extent of the metropolitan area, i.e., urban space and its primary commuter areas, is Tokyo, Japan. 

The largest city using the population by the size of an area with a specific population density, is also Tokyo, Japan.

The Chinese municipality of Chongqing consists of a large administrative area of about 82,403 square kilometres times the size of Austria. More than 70% of its 30-million population are agricultural workers living in a rural setting.

The Philippines, metropolitan areas have an official agency named “Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA)”. There are certain agencies, even in Indonesia, such as ‘Jabodetabekjur Development Cooperation Agency’ for the Jakarta metropolitan area.

There are about 4416 cities totally in the World. Every city is categorised from each other based on population, type of urbanisation (Metro City or a Normal Small City), types of people, types of languages, etc. But in general, the cities of every country are sorted in ascending or descending order based on their population. The list of the first fifty cities from the largest to the smallest one is:

What are the Smallest Countries in the World by Area & Population

The list of the first fifty cities from the largest to the smallest one