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China's cities are growing, and with that growth come the problems associated
with it: power, pollution, transportation, logistics, over-crowding, etc. But
how big are these cities? I tried to collect some data on this question at the bottom
of this page.
As we passed through various cities we would stick our cameras up against the
windows and mash the shutter button. Once in a while we caught something
interesting.
China, with a population of 1.25 billion people accounts for
over 20% of the population of the world. It has 13 cities of over 2 million
people. During our visit we heard confusing claims about city size. The most
striking was that Chongqing was the world's largest city, and contained about 30
million people. The official web
site for the city gives figures that make it
possible to put this in context. Chongqing is one of four urban areas in China (Beijing,
Shanghai, Tianjing and Chongqing) which is directly under the central government rather than being part of a
province. The closest analogy in the United States is the District of Columbia.
It administers an area of 32,800 square miles, an area larger than the state of
Indiana. As a result it can certainly claim to be the world's largest "City"
in area. With this much territory, it might seem
misleading to compare it to other cities, except that it has a population
density of 927 people per square mile, higher than that of the San Francisco Bay
area.
For the record, here are the worlds 25 most populous urban areas
based on the latest available census data. I have highlighted the ones that we
visited on this trip.
| Rank |
Urban Area
|
Census
|
Population |
City
Rank |
| Incl. suburbs |
City
proper |
| 1 |
Tokyo, Japan |
1995 |
32,574,900 |
7,967,614 |
9 |
| 2 |
Chongqing, China |
1997 |
30,420,000 |
3,127,178 |
20 |
| 3 |
Seoul, South Korea |
1998 |
21,273,000 |
10,231,217 |
1 |
| 4 |
New York, USA |
1996 |
19,938,500 |
7,380,906 |
10 |
| 5 |
Osaka, Japan |
1995 |
16,828,400 |
2,600,000 |
23 |
| 6 |
Mexico City, Mexico |
1995 |
16,674,200 |
8,274,921 |
7 |
| 7 |
São Paulo, Brazil |
1996 |
16,583,200 |
10,017,821 |
2 |
| 8 |
Bombay, India |
1996 |
15,725,000 |
9,925,891 |
3 |
| 9 |
Los Angeles, USA |
1996 |
15,495,200 |
3,553,638 |
19 |
| 10 |
Moscow, Russia |
1999 |
15,040,000 |
8,368,449 |
6 |
| 11 |
Shanghai, China |
1997 |
14,570,000 |
8,214,384 |
8 |
| 12 |
Cairo, Egypt |
1995 |
14,525,000 |
6,800,000 |
14 |
| 13 |
Beijing, China |
1997 |
12,400,000 |
7,362,426 |
11 |
| 14 |
Calcutta, India |
1996 |
12,118,000 |
4,399,819 |
18 |
| 15 |
Buenos Aires, Argentina |
1996 |
11,931,000 |
2,965,403 |
21 |
| 16 |
London, England |
1991 |
11,840,700 |
7,074,265 |
13 |
| 17 |
Jakarta, Indonesia |
1995 |
11,500,000 |
9,112,652 |
5 |
| 18 |
Teheran, Iran |
1996 |
11,176,200 |
6,750,043 |
15 |
| 19 |
Lagos, Nigeria |
1996 |
10,878,000 |
1,408,000 |
25 |
| 20 |
Paris, France |
1995 |
10,587,300 |
2,125,246 |
24 |
| 21 |
Delhi, India |
1996 |
10,298,000 |
7,206,704 |
12 |
| 22 |
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
1996 |
10,192,100 |
5,606,497 |
17 |
| 23 |
Karachi, Pakistan |
1996 |
10,119,000 |
9,863,000 |
4 |
| 24 |
Chengdu, China |
1997 |
9,890,000 |
2,954,872 |
22 |
| 25 |
Tianjin, China |
1997 |
9,530,000 |
5,855,044 |
16 |
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