Tokyo Displaced

Jakarta displaced Tokyo as the world's most populous city in a new United Nations report that changed how urban populations are counted.

Context

The UN has historically relied on data from national statistical authorities that use different definitions across countries, making it difficult to compare urban populations consistently. The new methodology applies uniform criteria based on population density and built-up areas to measure cities more accurately across all nations.

New System

The UN's World Urbanization Prospects 2025 report, published last month, estimates Jakarta's population is around 42M people, followed by Dhaka, Bangladesh, with 37M.

Tokyo fell to third place in the new report, with 33M residents. Under the previous system in 2018, Tokyo ranked first with 37M people, while Jakarta placed 33rd with 11M.

Measuring Jakarta

The new methodology counted roughly 30M more people in Jakarta than previous criteria would have captured. Indonesia's official statistics exclude densely populated communities connected to the city center, which the UN's new criteria approach now includes.

Jakarta has also experienced rapid growth over recent decades from mass migration and new infrastructure projects, creating dense neighborhoods that previous counts missed.

Global Trends

The UN report also found that cities now house 45% of the world's 8.2B people, more than double the proportion from 1950, when only 20% of the 2.5B global population lived in urban areas. The number of “megacities” – cities with at least 10M residents – also quadrupled from eight in 1975 to 33 in 2025, with 19 in Asia.

Nine of the 10 most populous cities are in Asia, with Cairo as the only non-Asian city that made the top 10 list. The UN projects that two-thirds of global population growth will occur in cities by 2050.