November 19, 2025, 1:40 pm | Read time: 3 minutes
The number of cities with populations in the millions worldwide continues to rise, according to the latest “World Urbanization Prospects” report by the UN. The new leader in terms of population is a city in Asia that wasn’t even in the top 10 largest cities in the world a few years ago. TRAVELBOOK summarizes the key findings of the UN report.
The number of megacities with more than 10 million inhabitants has quadrupled from just eight in 1975 to 33 by 2025. This is according to the recently released “World Urbanization Prospects 2025” report by the United Nations. Nineteen of these megacities are located in Asia.
The largest among them is also on the Asian continent: With nearly 42 million residents in 2025, the Indonesian capital Jakarta is the new most populous city in the world. There have been plans for years to gradually abandon the megacity on the island of Java as the capital. Instead, Nusantara on Borneo is set to become the new capital. The main reason is that Jakarta is slowly sinking, with already between 20 and 40 percent of the city below sea level. By 2050, the entire area of North Jakarta could be flooded.
However, whether the plans for the forest-built metropolis of Nusantara will really succeed is still uncertain.
The 10 Largest Cities in the World
According to the UN report, after Jakarta, the capital of Bangladesh is the second-largest city in the world. Dhaka has nearly 37 million residents. In third place is Tokyo (Japan) with 33 million residents. Egypt’s capital, Cairo, with around 26 million residents, is the only city among the ten largest cities in the world that is not in Asia. The megacities by population are as follows:
1. Jakarta, Indonesia (41.9 million)
2. Dhaka, Bangladesh (36.6 million)
3. Tokyo, Japan (33.4 million)
4. Delhi, India (30.2 million)
5. Shanghai, China (29.6 million)
6. Guangzhou, China (27.6 million)
7. Cairo, Egypt (25.6 million)
8. Manila, Philippines (24.7 million)
9. Kolkata, India (22.5 million)
10. Seoul, South Korea (22.5 million)
According to the UN, the rapidly growing Dhaka is expected to become the largest city in the world by the middle of the century. Karachi (Pakistan) will rise into the top ten by 2030 and could take fifth place by 2050. Tokyo, on the other hand, is expected to fall from third place in 2025 to seventh place by 2050, as its population will shrink to around 31 million.
More Megacities Will Emerge
Overall, the number of megacities is likely to increase further. According to UN forecasts, there will be 37 megacities worldwide by 2050, partly because the populations of Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Jaipur (India), and Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) will grow to over 10 million.