World's Largest Cities by Population (2025)

About This Dataset

The world's twenty largest cities ranked by the United Nations' 2025 urban agglomeration estimates, which count the continuously built-up area around a city rather than its administrative boundaries. Using one definition for every city makes the totals directly comparable.

✨ AI Insight

Asia dominates this ranking completely: fifteen of the twenty largest urban areas are Asian, and the top six are all in Asia. Jakarta leads with almost 42 million people, ahead of Dhaka on 36.6 million and Tokyo on 33.4 million. India places three cities in the top twelve - Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai - and China three in the top sixteen. Outside Asia only Cairo, São Paulo, Mexico City and Moscow appear at all, and no city in the United States, Western Europe or sub-Saharan Africa makes the list. The gap between first and twentieth is nearly threefold, so the largest agglomerations are far bigger than the rest of the field rather than clustered together.

Source: United Nations World Urbanization Prospects

Key Findings

Auto-computed highlights from this dataset

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Jakarta leads with 41,913,860 in 2025.

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Average value in 2025: 23,342,503 · median: 21,956,536.

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Gap in 2025: Jakarta is 3× larger than Ho Chi Minh City.