33 megacities and counting: The global urban explosion you didn’t see coming

United Nations' Department of Economic and Social Affairs published a report titled World Urbanization Prospects 2025. The highlight of that report is that the world we live is increasingly getting urban.

The 2025 estimates suggest that 45% of world's total population lives in cities. This figure was 20% in 1950 estimates. And by 2050, this figure will swell further. Number of megacities (10 million inhabitants or more) has quadrupled from eight in 1975 to 33 in 2025 and more than half of them are in Asia.

In 2000, Tokyo with 30.3 million inhabitants was the city with maximum population

In 2025, this has dramatically changed with Jakarta becoming the most populous city followed by Dhaka and Tokyo. Delhi, which was at number 6 in 2000, is now 4th most populous city. In 2000, Kolkata had more inhabitants than Delhi, but now it's on number 9.

The report also gave 2050 projections which show how the urban population is going to increase in megacities. Projections show that in 2050, Dhaka will become the most populous city, followed by Jakarta, Shanghai and Delhi. Kolkata will be at the 10th position. Tokyo, which is currently the largest city in terms of population, is expected to be at number 7 in the 2050 projections.

This growth of the world’s urban population between 2025 and 2050 will be concentrated in seven countries — India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Bangladesh, and Ethiopia. These seven countries alone are expected to add more than 500 million city residents.