Megacities: The Latest Architecture and News

According to the World Population Clock, the human population reached 8 billion on November 15^th. According to the UN, this milestone represents a celebration of human longevity due to improvements in public health and medicine, but it also comes with warnings about inequality, limited access to food and resources, and environmental damage. Despite the impressive number, the annual World Population Prospect report shows that the global population is growing at the slowest rate since 1950, and it predicts a continued deceleration in the second half of this century.

As more than half of the world population lives in cities, an estimated 55.7%, according to UN-Habitat’s latest reports, the urban challenges are growing exponentially. The UN expects this number to increase to 68% by 2050, with close to 90% of this increase taking place in Asia and Africa. Accelerated urbanization can pose significant risks, such as increasing inequality, poverty, sectorized development, social exclusion, and pollution. In this context, a well-balanced urban agenda becomes crucially important in achieving inclusive, safe, and sustainable cities.

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Half of the world’s population now lives in cities, according to UN-Habitat’s latest reports. While this number is set to increase to two-thirds by 2050, urban challenges are growing exponentially, making it more crucial than ever, to transform our cities. Annually, the world population review assesses the growth of cities and the number of residents living in metropolitan areas, to understand global evolution trends. In 2022, the list of the top 20 most populated countries remained similar to the 2021 edition, with a slight change in numbers and positions. Tokyo kept its status as the world’s largest city, with 37 million inhabitants, while Delhi and Shanghai, followed in second and third positions.

Comparing the results to the 2021 edition, the only decrease that can be seen in the top 20, involves both Japanese cities, Tokyo and Osaka. The rest of the list had, on average, a growth of 1.8% in the total of people residing in metropolitan areas. In fact, African cities Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Lagos in Nigeria gathered the highest rates, with respectively a 4.39% and a 3.54% increase in residents in 1 year. The largest city in the American continent is still Sao Paulo in Brazil, followed closely by Mexico City and Buenos Aires in Argentina, further down the table. In Europe, Istanbul is the most populous, with more than 14.5 million residents.

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According to the United Nations’ latest report on populations in cities, by 2030, “urban areas are projected to house 60 percent of people globally and one in every three people will live in cities with at least half a million inhabitants”. Growing in both size and number, cities are hubs of government, commerce, and transportation, and in 2021, the world’s 20 largest cities are home to half a billion people. In fact, one in five people worldwide lives in a city with more than 1 million inhabitants.

Below, we have rounded up the top 20 megacities in the world of 2021, according to the number of people that live in their metropolitan area. While Tokyo is the largest city on a global level, with a total of more than 37 million residents, the majority of the most populous cities in the world are in the two most populated countries, China and India. Among these, we have 5 metropolises in China, Shanghai, Beijing, Chongqing, Tianjin, and Guangzhou, and 3 in India, Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata. The largest city in the American continent is Sao Paulo in Brazil with 22 million people, followed by Mexico City and Buenos Aires in Argentina. Istanbul takes the 13th position with one part of the city lying in Europe and the other part in Asia.

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