In 2025, Moscow was the largest city in Europe with an estimated urban agglomeration of 12.74 million people. The French capital, Paris, was the second largest city in 2025 at 11.35 million, followed by the capitals of the United Kingdom and Spain, with London at 9.84 million and Madrid at 6.81 million people. Istanbul, which would otherwise be the largest city in Europe in 2025, is excluded as it is only partially in Europe, with a sizeable part of its population living in Asia. Europe’s population is almost 750 million Since 1950, the population of Europe has increased by approximately 200 million people, increasing from 550 million to 750 million in these seventy years. Before the turn of the millennium, Europe was the second-most populated continent, before it was overtaken by Africa, which saw its population increase from 228 million in 1950 to 817 million by 2000. Asia has consistently had the largest population of the world’s continents and was estimated to have a population of 4.6 billion. Europe’s largest countries Including its territory in Asia, Russia is by far the largest country in the world, with a territory of around 17 million square kilometers, almost double that of the next largest country, Canada. Within Europe, Russia also has the continent's largest population at 145 million, followed by Germany at 83 million and the United Kingdom at almost 68 million. By contrast, Europe is also home to various micro-states such as San Marino, which has a population of just 30 thousand.

The world is a crowded place, with more than 7 billion people on the planet as of 2014. About half of this population lives in urban areas, and ongoing migration into city centers has given rise to the megacity—a metropolitan area with 10 million people or more. This story map was produced by Esri's story map team. It is a customization of the Esri Story Map Journal app, and was created in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution. This story map was also published on Smithsonian.com:https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/make-cities-explode-size-these-interactive-maps-180952832/

This statistic shows the ten countries with the largest increase in the size of the urban population between 2018 and 2050. Based on forecasted population figures, the urban population of India is projected to be around 416 million more in 2050 than it was in 2018.

As of 2025, Tokyo-Yokohama in Japan was the largest world urban agglomeration, with 37 million people living there. Delhi ranked second with more than 34 million, with Shanghai in third with more than 30 million inhabitants.

Singapore and New York were ranked as the most expensive cities worldwide with an index of 100 out of a possible 100. Three of the 11 most expensive cities were in the United States, whereas two were in Switzerland.

It is estimated that more than 8 billion people live on Earth and the population is likely to hit more than 9 billion by 2050. Approximately 55 percent of Earth’s human population currently live in areas classified as urban. That number is expected to grow by 2050 to 68 percent, according to the United Nations (UN).The largest cities in the world include Tōkyō, Japan; New Delhi, India; Shanghai, China; México City, Mexico; and São Paulo, Brazil. Each of these cities classifies as a megacity, a city with more than 10 million people. The UN estimates the world will have 43 megacities by 2030.Most cities' populations are growing as people move in for greater economic, educational, and healthcare opportunities. But not all cities are expanding. Those cities whose populations are declining may be experiencing declining fertility rates (the number of births is lower than the number of deaths), shrinking economies, emigration, or have experienced a natural disaster that resulted in fatalities or forced people to leave the region.This Global Cities map layer contains data published in 2018 by the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA). It shows urban agglomerations. The UN DESA defines an urban agglomeration as a continuous area where population is classified at urban levels (by the country in which the city resides) regardless of what local government systems manage the area. Since not all places record data the same way, some populations may be calculated using the city population as defined by its boundary and the metropolitan area. If a reliable estimate for the urban agglomeration was unable to be determined, the population of the city or metropolitan area is used.Data Citation: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. World Urbanization Prospects: The 2018 Revision. Statistical Papers - United Nations (ser. A), Population and Vital Statistics Report, 2019, https://doi.org/10.18356/b9e995fe-en.

This statistic shows a forecast of the top ten most populous megacities in 2030. By 2030, Tokyo will be the most populous city in the world, with a projected 37 million inhabitants.

This database provides the construction of Large Urban Regions (LUR) in the world. A Large Urban Region (LUR) can be defined as an aggregation of continuous statistical units around a core that are economically dependent on this core and linked to it by economic and social strong interdependences. The main purpose of this delineation is to make cities comparable on the national and world scales and to make comparative social-economic urban studies. Aggregating different municipal districts around a core city, we construct a single large urban region, which allows to include all the areas of economic influence of a core into one statistical unit (see Rozenblat, 2020 or Rogov & Rozenblat, 2020 for Russia). In doing so we use four principal urban concepts (Pumain et al., 1992): local administrative units (Municipality or localities: MUNI), morphological urban area (MUA), functional urban area (FUA), and conurbation that we call Large Urban Region (LUR). The LURs are the spatial extensions of the influence of one or several FUAs or MUAs. MUAs and FUAs are defined by various national or international sources. We implemented LURs using criteria such as the population distribution among one or several MUAs or FUAs, road networks, access to an airport, distance from a core, and presence of multinational firms. FUAs and MUAs perimeters, if they form a part of a LUR, belong to a unique LUR. In this database, we provide the composition of the LURs in terms of local administrative units (MUNI), Morphological Urban Areas (MUA), and Functional Urban Areas (FUA).

This last update provides new LURs for the 54 African Countries (see Rogromel & Rozenblat, 2024) and some corrections for China.

It includes now 1'828 LURs composed of 130'283 localities.

This statistic provides a projection of the gross domestic product (GDP) of major megacities worldwide in 2030. As of this time, it is projected that the GDP of Tokyo, Japan, will reach 40 billion U.S. dollars.

The Global Human Footprint dataset of the Last of the Wild Project, version 2, 2005 (LWPv2) is the Human Influence Index (HII) normalized by biome and realm. The HII is a global dataset of 1 km grid cells, created from nine global data layers covering human population pressure (population density), human land use and infraestructure (built-up areas, nighttime lights, land use/land cover) and human access (coastlines, roads, navigable rivers).The Human Footprint Index (HF) map, expresses as a percentage the relative human influence in each terrestrial biome. HF values from 0 to 100. A value of zero represents the least influence -the "most wild" part of the biome with value of 100 representing the most influence (least wild) part of the biome.

The average variation of key urban indicators and GHGs of 41 megacities.

The Global Human Footprint dataset of the Last of the Wild Project, version 2, 2005 (LWPv2) is the Human Influence Index (HII) normalized by biome and realm. The HII is a global dataset of 1 km grid cells, created from nine global data layers covering human population pressure (population density), human land use and infraestructure (built-up areas, nighttime lights, land use/land cover) and human access (coastlines, roads, navigable rivers).The Human Footprint Index (HF) map, expresses as a percentage the relative human influence in each terrestrial biome. HF values from 0 to 100. A value of zero represents the least influence -the "most wild" part of the biome with value of 100 representing the most influence (least wild) part of the biome.

Urban open space (UOS) plays an important role, especially in areas characterized by intense social and economic activity. However, UOS mapping products for major cities around the world are lacking. To fill this gap, we used a deep learning–based method based on a tiny-manual annotation strategy to map UOS and produced a 1.19 m resolution UOS map of 2021 in urban areas of global 169 megacities with populations of over 3,000,000 people (namely the OpenspaceGlobal product). It contains five urban open space categories, namely "park and green spaces," "outdoor sports spaces," "transportation spaces," "water body spaces", and "background". The OpenspaceGlobal product can promote a better understanding of human-made space surfaces in major cities worldwide and facilitate functions such as urban livability estimation, urban planning, and sustainable development. The OpenspaceGlobal product is free to use for non-commercial forms including scientific research and science promotion under proper citation.

The Global Human Footprint dataset of the Last of the Wild Project, version 2, 2005 (LWPv2) is the Human Influence Index (HII) normalized by biome and realm. The HII is a global dataset of 1 km grid cells, created from nine global data layers covering human population pressure (population density), human land use and infraestructure (built-up areas, nighttime lights, land use/land cover) and human access (coastlines, roads, navigable rivers).The Human Footprint Index (HF) map, expresses as a percentage the relative human influence in each terrestrial biome. HF values from 0 to 100. A value of zero represents the least influence -the "most wild" part of the biome with value of 100 representing the most influence (least wild) part of the biome.

The Global Human Footprint dataset of the Last of the Wild Project, version 2, 2005 (LWPv2) is the Human Influence Index (HII) normalized by biome and realm. The HII is a global dataset of 1 km grid cells, created from nine global data layers covering human population pressure (population density), human land use and infraestructure (built-up areas, nighttime lights, land use/land cover) and human access (coastlines, roads, navigable rivers).The Human Footprint Index (HF) map, expresses as a percentage the relative human influence in each terrestrial biome. HF values from 0 to 100. A value of zero represents the least influence -the "most wild" part of the biome with value of 100 representing the most influence (least wild) part of the biome.

The COVID-19 pandemic perturbed air pollutant emissions as cities shut down worldwide. Peroxyacyl nitrates (PANs) are important tracers of photochemistry that are formed through the oxidation of non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs) in the presence of nitrogen oxide radicals (NOx = NO + NO2). We use satellite measurements of free tropospheric PANs from the S-NPP Cross-Track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) over eight of the world’s megacities: Mexico City, Beijing, Los Angeles, Tokyo, São Paulo, Delhi, Lagos, and Karachi. We quantify the seasonal cycle of PANs over these megacities and find seasonal maxima in PANs correspond to seasonal peaks in local photochemistry. CrIS is used to explore changes in PANs in response to the COVID-19 lockdowns. Statistically significant changes to PANs occurred over two megacities: Los Angeles (PAN decreased) and Beijing (PAN increased). Our analysis suggests that large perturbations in NOx may not result in significant declines in NOx export potential of megacities.

This data has been collected to parameterize the Multimedia Urban Model for 19 different mega or major cities. The data collected here can be used with the model, which is available from https://github.com/tfmrodge/FugModel, to estimate the transport and fate of organic contaminants from urban areas.

The Global Human Footprint dataset of the Last of the Wild Project, version 2, 2005 (LWPv2) is the Human Influence Index (HII) normalized by biome and realm. The HII is a global dataset of 1 km grid cells, created from nine global data layers covering human population pressure (population density), human land use and infraestructure (built-up areas, nighttime lights, land use/land cover) and human access (coastlines, roads, navigable rivers).The Human Footprint Index (HF) map, expresses as a percentage the relative human influence in each terrestrial biome. HF values from 0 to 100. A value of zero represents the least influence -the "most wild" part of the biome with value of 100 representing the most influence (least wild) part of the biome.

Cities in the United States dominate the list of cities with the highest rents worldwide. New York was ranked as the most expensive city to rent in, ahead of San Francisco, with an index score of 100. Boston followed in third.

The Global Human Footprint dataset of the Last of the Wild Project, version 2, 2005 (LWPv2) is the Human Influence Index (HII) normalized by biome and realm. The HII is a global dataset of 1 km grid cells, created from nine global data layers covering human population pressure (population density), human land use and infraestructure (built-up areas, nighttime lights, land use/land cover) and human access (coastlines, roads, navigable rivers).The Human Footprint Index (HF) map, expresses as a percentage the relative human influence in each terrestrial biome. HF values from 0 to 100. A value of zero represents the least influence -the "most wild" part of the biome with value of 100 representing the most influence (least wild) part of the biome.