Indonesia’s capital has officially become the world’s largest city, according to new findings from the United Nations. The latest World Urbanization Prospects 2025 report shows that Jakarta now has an estimated 41.9 million residents, pushing it from second place into the top spot.
Jakarta, Indonesia/Ache Dipro/Unsplash
Dhaka, the fast-growing capital of Bangladesh, follows with 36.6 million people. Its rapid rise is striking: the city ranked ninth in the UN’s previous assessment from 2000 and is now projected to become the world’s largest urban centre by 2050.
As previously reported by Al Jazeera, Tokyo, which held the global lead for decades, has slipped to third with a relatively stable population of 33.4 million.
A world of megacities
The UN report highlights how dramatically urbanisation has reshaped global demographics. There are now 33 megacities—defined as urban areas with more than 10 million inhabitants—compared with only eight in 1975.
Nineteen of these megacities are in Asia, and nine of the world’s ten largest cities are located on the continent.
Alongside Jakarta, Dhaka and Tokyo, the top tier includes:
- New Delhi, India (30.2 million)
- Shanghai, China (29.6 million)
- Guangzhou, China (27.6 million)
- Manila, Philippines (24.7 million)
- Kolkata, India (22.5 million)
- Seoul, South Korea (22.5 million)
Cairo, with 32 million residents, is the only non-Asian entry in the top 10. São Paulo remains the largest city in the Americas with 18.9 million people, while Lagos continues its rapid expansion as sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest urban hub.
Pressures shaping growth
Dhaka’s booming population is partly driven by rural migration—people seeking better economic prospects or fleeing environmental challenges such as flooding and the impacts of rising sea levels.
Jakarta faces similar vulnerabilities. As a low-lying coastal city, it is increasingly threatened by land subsidence and climate-driven sea-level rise. Some projections warn that a quarter of Jakarta could be underwater by 2050. Despite government efforts to relocate administrative functions to a new capital, Nusantara, the UN estimates Jakarta will gain another 10 million residents by mid-century.
Rapid growth also brings social pressures. This year, thousands of residents—many of them low-income workers and app-based delivery riders—protested over affordability concerns and widening inequalities.
Elsewhere, the report notes that Tehran, Iran’s capital, is grappling with severe water shortages while housing nine million people.
New ways of defining a city
This year’s assessment incorporates updated criteria to standardise how urban areas are measured globally. The UN now defines a city as a continuous cluster of one-square-kilometre cells with a density of at least 1,500 people per square kilometre and a total population of 50,000 or more. The aim is to reduce discrepancies between national definitions and provide a clearer picture of urban growth worldwide.
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