Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 4-4
Changing Population of Asia' s Mega-cities in the W orld' s T Top
Asia' s
Mega-cities
Pop.
Pop.
Ranking
2015
2010
Pop.
Pop.
in the
In
In
In
In
In
In
In the
W orld' s
T op 30
Millions
Millions
Millions
2000/2015
2015
2010
T op 30
2000
1990
1980
1950
T okyo
35,494
36,094
34,250
32,530
28,549
11,275
1/1
Mumbai
21,869
20,072
16,086
12,308
8,658
2,857
5/2
Delhi
18,604
17,015
12,441
8,206
5,558
1,369
8/6
Shanghai
17,225
15,789
13,243
8,205
7,608
6,066
6/7
Kolkata
16,980
15,577
13,058
10,890
9,030
4,513
7/8
Dhaka
16,842
14,769
10,159
6,621
3,226
336
15/9
12/10
16,822
Jakarta
9,703
8,390
8,175
5,984
1,452
17/12
Manila
Karachi
15,155
13,052
10,020
7,147
5,048
1,055
18/16
Beijing*
12,917
11,662
9,950
7,973
5,955
1,544
20/17
Osaka-Kobe
12,850
11,741
9,782
7,362
6,448
4,331
11,309
11,337
11,165
11,035
9,990
4,147
7,388
3,918
3,005
1,491
Guangzhou
19/26
9,545
Seoul*
9,762
9,917
10,544
8,258
1,021
Shenzhen
174
n.a./27
8,958
337
8,114
6,069
875
live in the T Tokyo metropolitan region. Expansion and
accretion absorb increasing shares of national popula-
tions into the urban world.
Primacy is not tied to a country' is degree of urbaniza-
tion or to its number of cities. Both South Korea and
Japan are highly urbanized. Thailand is not highly ur-
banized, yet Bangkok is a primate city dominating the
Thai economy . Shanghai, China' is largest city , is not a pri-
mate city at the national level because the country has
several similarly sized cities. However, Shanghai might
be seen as a primate city in a regional context, as most of
China' is economic development is concentrated in the
eastern provinces. Primacy indicates spatial dominance
at varying scales of observation.
and environmental problems beyond the scope of simple
solutions.
Polarization of development has created
mega-cities,
giant cities of over 10 million people, often incorporating
several cities in a cluster (Table 4-4). T Today, , 11 of the
world' s 19 megacities are in Asia, including 6 in the top 10.
Although megacities are the most obvious manifestation
of urbanization on the landscape, we must take note of
the fact that more than half of the region' s people live in
cities with fewer than 5 million people. Figure 4-9 shows
what the distribution of the world' s largest cities will be
like in 2050. Notice how these are concentrated in Asia.
Mega-cities in developing countries are predicted to
be even larger in 2015. For example, Dhaka, Bangladesh,
will continue to experience rapid growth although at de-
creasing rates of increase. Part of this increase derives
from the fact that city boundaries were expanded to in-
corporate another million people. However, the majority
of growth will still come from rural-urban migration.
While the country has improved economically , most
Bangladeshis remain farmers, and other types of job op-
portunities in the countryside are scarce. Since most mi-
grants are poorly educated and relatively high-wage jobs
in Dhaka are limited, they end up in low-end occupa-
tions. The fastest growing employment sector in the city
includes rickshaw drivers and petty retailing.
MEGA-URBAN REGIONS
In the fifth century BC, the Chinese philosopher and
sage Confucius postulated 3,000 persons as an ideal city
size. In the twenty-first century , the Beijing-Tianjin met-
ropolitan region is expected to house 37 million per-
sons. In the early twentieth century , a mere 26 million
lived in India' s cities. At the turn of the twenty-first cen-
tury , India' s urban dwellers totaled more than 222 million.
Such dense accumulations of humanity have reached
unparalleled proportions with entanglements of human
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