The world has gone a long way and the 20 biggest metropolitan areas in the world in 2015 are an exceptional proof of that. Quite like the 12 fastest growing metropolitan areas in America in 2015, all we know as our home is growing and slowly but surely expanding at seemingly faster and faster rates every day. The human population on the planet has boomed into the mind-blowing over seven billion people while having been less than a billion just a couple centuries ago. Ever since the industrial revolution and people’s increasingly good prospects of leading a long and fulfilling life from the day they’re born until their last breath is doing what it would do to any other species – it makes us multiply. While other species that multiply in orders of magnitude when given favorable conditions are seen as pests and vermin, human beings are spreading at rates which are successfully outperforming most other living creatures and depleting our resources.
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These 20 biggest metropolitan areas in the world in 2015 are seemingly a good sign that the world’s major cities are growing to be what huge and influential countries in the past used to be, there are many underlying problems. Take for instance, the already mentioned threatening depletion of resources but combine it with people’s wish to be closer to the center of that area and the overcrowding that springs out of that and thus – horrible pollution. Just like the system it harms so effortlessly, the modern metropolitan city structure is a complex one, the processes of which are strongly intertwined and compliment each other. However, huge metropolitan cities are also a boost to the economy and greatly lessen the effort to achieve certain goals. Aside from not wanting to, authorities could not succeed in purposefully dispersing the population crammed in these areas because people are allowed freedom of their movement. This movement, in turn, is dictated by what we could describe as “hotspots” of life which have an obvious gravitational pull. Much like water trickling down a fountain, people from greater distances move closer to the city and aside from bringing more of these new settlers, they also help grow the city’s area until it swallows whatever surrounding towns and villages it had and keeps on growing.
There is a whole branch of science dedicated to how and why urbanization works the way it does and even more – the factors behind the creation and expansion of these brightest instances of our advancing civilization. However, to keep this list from spinning out of control with too much information, you should just check out the 20 biggest metropolitan areas in the world in 2015 ranked by their population.
20. Los Angeles
Estimated Population: 13 260 000+
Having actually taken quite a few steps back from the thirteenth spot, first off on our list is Los Angeles with the humble thirteen million and over people residing in the metropolitan area. It is currently the second largest metropolitan area in the United States.
19. London
Estimated Population: 13 897 000+
The nineteenth spot goes to London which has been, for quite a while, a major hub for immigrants of all sorts who mostly stay within the premises of the city for lengthy periods of time. This metropolitan area (also known as the London Commuter Belt) is the largest in European Union but not on the whole continent of Europe.
18. Istanbul
Estimated Population: 14 377 000+
Istanbul has been known by many names throughout history, including Constantinople. It has been a metropolis for at least a thousand years and continues to grow to date, taking the eighteenth spot on our list with close to fourteen million and three hundred and eighty thousand people and counting.
17. Tehran
Estimated Population: 14 596 000+
Our seventeenth contender – Tehran – had its metropolitan area (known as Greater Tehran) officially formed in 1973 in order to unite a number of adjacent cities. From then, until the nineties of the past century, the metropolitan area saw a great growth spurt in its population, which was eventually extinguished – an event often contributed to different family planning.
16. Kolkata
Estimated Population: 14 618 000+
India’s Kolkata Metropolitan Area, which you might better know as the Calcutta Metropolitan Area, takes the sixteenth place with more than fourteen million and a half. Encompassing countless towns and cities around Kolkata, this metropolitan area is developing rapidly.
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15. Cairo
Estimated Population: 16 290 000+
Egypt’s Metropolitan Area of Cairo is the biggest in the country and on the continent, making it another impressive entry on this list, albeit only taking the fifteenth spot. Given Cairo’s location, the vast urbanization of the region has made daytime heat worse than it ever was.
14. Osaka
Estimated Population: 19 340 000+
The Osaka metropolitan area is known to the Japanese as Keihanshin and encompasses three major cities on the island – Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe. This metropolitan area is home to just below nineteen million and a half which is around fifteen percent of Japan’s population.
13. Moscow
Estimated Population: 19 430 000+
Moscow is one of the biggest metropolitan areas in the world as well as being the biggest in Russia and the continent of Europe. The Moscow region’s population sums up to almost nineteen and a half million people.
12. New York
Estimated Population: 20 090 000+
Known as the Big Apple, New York and its metropolitan area make the twelfth spot on the list with just above twenty million residents. However, New York by itself is the most populous and largest city in the United States so far.
11. Mumbai
Estimated Population: 20 740 000+
Mumbai takes a considerable leap of almost a million people from the last contender. Divided into seven regions, the area has been developing at rapid rates for the past twenty plus years and is continuing its expanding to this day.
10. Sao Paulo
Estimated Population: 20 930 000+
Sao Paulo and its metropolitan area are known as the center of all sorts of affairs in Brazil which explains the population and its density there.
9. Lagos
Estimated Population: 21 000 000+
Nigeria’s biggest city and Africa’s second fastest growing so far takes the ninth spot in the list of the 20 biggest metropolitan areas in the world in 2015.
8. Beijing
Estimated Population: 21 150 000+
China’s capital would be expected to be farther down the list at this point in its development but the ever-growing metropolis only makes it to the eighth spot.
7. Mexico City
Estimated Population: 21 170 000+
Mexico City, otherwise known as one of the most cramped places on Earth takes the respectable seventh spot on our list with a population of well over twenty-one million and a hundred and seventy thousand.
6. Delhi
Estimated Population: 21 750 000+
India had to appear with its own metropolitan area somewhere in this list and it turns out that place is the sixth spot. Delhi takes it with a considerable leap from the last position of over half a million more.
5. Karachi
Estimated Population: 23 500 000+
The largest city of Pakistan and the capital of the province of Sindh takes the fifth spot on this list with more than two million over India’s Delhi. This metropolis, as well as being one of the most populous is known as “the city that never sleeps”.
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4. Guangzhou
Estimated Population: 23 900 000+
Known by the much, much simpler name of Canton, the metropolitan area of Guangzhou encompasses close to twenty-four million people in an area smaller than some of the contenders in the last spots on this list.
3. Shanghai
Estimated Population: 24 750 000+
The third Chinese metropolis on this list so far, Shanghai takes on a number of residents that is probably nearing twenty-five million at the time of writing of this list even though the estimate here states less.
2. Seoul
Estimated Population: 25 620 000+
The second spot on the list goes to Seoul which is not only the second largest metropolitan area in the world so far but also Republic of Korea’s capital and biggest city.
1. Tokyo
Estimated Population: 36 920 000+
As any moderately educated person in the world would probably expect, Tokyo takes the first spot on the list of the 20 biggest metropolitan areas in the world in 2015 by far with close to thirty seven million residents on its territory.
