Karachi ranked 7th largest urban area of the world

Karachi has been declared the seventh largest urban area of the world with a demography of 22 million, while Punjab’s capital Lahore stands at the 34th position in the same rankings, says an annual report released by Demographia.

This report contains population, land area and population density for all 1,009 identified urban areas (urban agglomerations or urbanized areas) in the world with 500,000 or more population as of the volume date. The total population of these urban areas is estimated at 2.06 billion, 53 percent of the world urban population in 2015.

According to the report, Tokyo is declared as the largest urban area in the world with estimated population of 37 million in 2015, followed by Indonesia at second position, New Delhi third and Manila fourth.

Lahore stands at 34th position in ranking of ‘Largest urban areas of the world’ with estimated population of 10 million.

A number of smaller urban areas are also listed. Overall, data is provided for 1,728 urban areas of all sizes, which comprise a population of 2.2 billion people, 56 percent of the world urban population.

DISTRIBUTION OF LARGE URBAN AREA POPULATION:

More than one-half of the population of large urban areas (500,000 and over) is in Asia, living in 532 of the 1,009 large urban areas (Figure 1). In recent years, the world has become more than one-half urban for the first time in history.

This year’s edition indicates that there are 34 megacities in the world (urban areas over 10 million population). A total of 75 urban areas are indicated with 5,000,000 or more population.

Yet, it would be a mistake to imply that the world’s urban residents live in settings similar to 5th Avenue in New York or within the fourth ring road of Beijing or in inner Paris. A sizable number of people live in urban settings that are anything but large urban. Less than one quarter (23.3 percent) of the world population lives in urban areas of 1,000,000 population or more. Less than 30 percent (28.1 percent) lives in urban areas with 500,000 or more population. More than 70 percent of the world’s population lives outside urban areas with 500,000 or more residents.

Demographia World Urban Areas (Built-up Urban Areas or Urban Agglomerations) is the only annually published inventory of population, corresponding land area and population density for urban areas with more than 500,000 population.