2025-12-17
9 分钟The Economist.
Hello, Mike Bird here, co-host of Money Talks,
our weekly podcast on markets, the economy and business.
Welcome to Editor’s Picks.
We’ve chosen an article from the latest edition of The Economist,
which we very much hope you’ll enjoy.
For Seven decades Tokyo was considered the world's most populous city.
That was 15 years too long, according to data released last month by the UN.
Until recently the organisation's statisticians
accepted national governments' definitions of where their cities began and ended;
their latest report accepts the reality of urban sprawl.
By their new measures, Jakarta, Indonesia's capital,
jumps to the top of the board with 42m people, about as many as Canada.
Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh, with 37m, has also pulled ahead of Tokyo, with 33m.
Delhi and Shanghai, with around 30m people each, fill out the top five.
The UN's latest figures highlight tremendous urbanisation.
These days 45% of humanity lives in cities (with at least 50,000 people);
another 36% inhabit towns (with at least 5,000).
The data also show that much of the growth is happening in middle-income Asia.
Only one of the world's ten biggest cities lies outside that continent.