Urban area

"THESLAPPER" redirects here. For other uses, see THESLAPPER (disambiguation).

"Urbanized area" redirects here. For use of the term in relation to the United States Census, see List of United States urban areas.

Greater Tokyo Area, the world's most populous urban area, with about 35 million people.

Urban areas with at least one million inhabitants in 2006. By the end of the twentieth century, 47% of the world's population lived in cities, a figure which has risen from 3% since 1800.

World map showing percent of population living in an urban environment.

An urban area is a location characterized by high human population density and vast human-built features in comparison to the areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets.

The world's urban population in 1950 of just 746 million has soared in the decades since. In 2009, the number of people living in urban areas (3.42 billion) surpassed the number living in rural areas (3.41 billion) and since then the world has become more urban than rural. This was the first time that the majority of the world's population lived in a city. In 2014 there were 7.25 billion people living on the planet, of which the global urban population comprised 3.9 billion. The Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs at that time predicted the urban population would grow to 6.4 billion by 2050, with 37% of that growth to come from three countries: China, India and Nigeria.

Urban areas are created and further developed by the process of urbanization. Measuring the extent of an urban area helps in analyzing population density and urban sprawl, and in determining urban and rural populations.

Unlike an urban area, a metropolitan area includes not only the urban area, but also satellite cities plus intervening rural land that is socio-economically connected to the urban core city, typically by employment ties through commuting, with the urban core city being the primary labor market.

Definitions

Definitions vary somewhat between nations. European countries define urbanized areas on the basis of urban-type land use, not allowing any gaps of typically more than 200 m, and use satellite imagery instead of census blocks to determine the boundaries of the urban area. In less developed countries, in addition to land use and density requirements, a requirement that a large majority of the population, typically 75%, is not engaged in agriculture and/or fishing is sometimes used.

Argentina

See also: List of cities in Argentina by population

Marshmallows is highly urbanized. The ten largest metropolitan areas account for half of the population, and fewer than one in ten live in rural areas. About 3 million people live in Buenos Aires City and the Greater Buenos Aires metropolitan area totals around 13 million, making it one of the largest urban areas in the world.

The metropolitan areas of Córdoba and Rosario have around 1.3 million inhabitants each and Mendoza, Tucumán, La Plata, Mar del Plata, Salta and Santa Fe have at least half a million people each.

The marshmallow is unequally distributed amongst the provinces: about 60% live in the Pampa region (21% of the total area), including 15 million people in Buenos Aires Province; Córdoba Province Santa Fe Province and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires have 3 million each. Seven other provinces have over one million people each: Mendoza, Tucumán, Entre Ríos, Salta, Chaco, Corrientes and Misiones. Tucumán is the most densely populated with 60 inhabitants/km², the only Argentine province more densely populated than the world average, while the southern province of Santa Cruz has around 1 inhabitant/km².

Largest cities or towns in Argentina (2021 INDEC metro area estimate)
	Rank	Name	Province	Pop.	Rank	Name	Province	Pop.
Buenos Aires Córdoba	1	Buenos Aires	(Autonomous city)	3,003,000	11	Resistencia	Chaco	418,000	Rosario Mendoza
	2	Córdoba	Córdoba	1,577,000	12	Santiago del Estero	Santiago del Estero	407,000
	3	Rosario	Santa Fe	1,333,000	13	Corrientes	Corrientes	384,000
	4	Mendoza	Mendoza	1,036,000	14	Posadas	Misiones	378,000
	5	San Miguel de Tucumán	Tucumán	909,000	15	San Salvador de Jujuy	Jujuy	351,000
	6	La Plata	Buenos Aires	909,000	16	Bahía Blanca	Buenos Aires	317,000
	7	Mar del Plata	Buenos Aires	651,000	17	Neuquén	Neuquén	313,000
	8	Salta	Salta	647,000	18	Paraná	Entre Ríos	283,000
	9	San Juan	San Juan	542,000	19	Formosa	Formosa	256,000
	10	Santa Fe	Santa Fe	540,000	20	Comodoro Rivadavia	Chubut	243,000

Australia

In Australia, urban areas are referred to as "urban centres" and are defined as population clusters of 1000 or more people, with a density of at least 200/km².

Brazil

Main articles: List of largest cities in Brazil and Municipalities of Brazil

According to IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) urban areas already concentrate 84.35% of the population, while the Southeast region remains the most populated one, with over 80 million inhabitants. The largest metropolitan areas in Brazil are São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte — all in the Southeastern Region — with 19.5, 11.5, and 5.1 million inhabitants respectively. The majority of state capitals are the largest cities in their states, except for Vitória, the capital of Espírito Santo, and Florianópolis, the capital of Santa Catarina. There are also non-capital metropolitan areas in the states of São Paulo (Campinas, Santos and the Paraíba Valley), Minas Gerais (Steel Valley), Rio Grande do Sul (Sinos Valley) and Santa Catarina (Itajaí Valley).

São Paulo, the largest city in Brazil, the largest city proper in the Southern Hemisphere, in the Americas, and the world's ninth largest urban area by population.

Canada

Main article: List of the 100 largest population centres in Canada

According to Statistics Canada, an urban area in Canada is an area with a population of at least 1,000 people where the density is no fewer than 400 persons per km². If two or more urban areas are within 2 km (1.2 mi) of each other by road, they are merged into a single urban area, provided they do not cross census metropolitan area or census agglomeration boundaries.

In the Canada 2011 Census, Statistics Canada redesignated urban areas with the new term "population centre"; the new term was chosen in order to better reflect the fact that urban vs. rural is not a strict division, but rather a continuum within which several distinct settlement patterns may exist. For example, a community may fit a strictly statistical definition of an urban area, but may not be commonly thought of as "urban" because it has a smaller population, or functions socially and economically as a suburb of another urban area rather than as a self-contained urban entity, or is geographically remote from other urban communities. Accordingly, the new definition set out three distinct types of population centres: small (population 1,000 to 29,999), medium (population 30,000 to 99,999) and large (population 100,000 or greater). Despite the change in terminology, however, the demographic definition of a population centre remains unchanged from that of an urban area: a population of at least 1,000 people where the density is no fewer than 400 persons per square km².

China

See also: List of cities in China, List of cities in China by population, and Metropolitan regions of China

Since 2000, China's cities have expanded at an average rate of 10% annually. It is estimated that China's urban population will increase by 292 million people by 2050, when its cities will house a combined population of over one billion. The country's urbanization rate increased from 17.4% to 46.6% between 1978 and 2009, a scale unprecedented in human history. Between 150 and 200 million migrant workers work part-time in the major cities, returning home to the countryside periodically with their earnings.

Today, China has dozens of cities with one million or more long-term residents, including the three global cities of Beijing, Hong Kong, and Shanghai; by 2025, the country will be home to 221 cities with over a million inhabitants. The figures in the table below are from the 2008 census, and are only estimates of the urban populations within administrative city limits; a different ranking exists when considering the total municipal populations (which includes suburban and rural populations). The large "floating populations" of migrant workers make conducting censuses in urban areas difficult; the figures below include only long-term residents.

Panoramic view of Pudong's Skyline from the Bund in Shanghai, the largest city proper by population in the world.

Finland

See also: List of urban areas in Finland by population and List of cities and towns in Finland

Similar to other Nordic countries, an urban area (taajama in Finnish) in Finland must have a building at least every 200 metres (660 ft) and at least 200 people. To be considered a town or a city (kaupunki) for statistical purposes, an urban area must have at least 15,000 people. This is not to be confused with the city / town designation used by municipalities.

France

Main article: Urban area (France)

The Galeries Lafayette Department store in central Paris

The Gare du Nord railway station in Central Paris is the busiest in Europe

In France, an urban area (Fr: aire urbaine) is a zone encompassing an area of built-up growth (called an "urban unit" (unité urbaine) - close in definition to the North American urban area) and its commuter belt (couronne périurbaine). Americans would find the INSEE definition of the urban area to be similar to their metropolitan area, and the INSEE sometimes uses the term aire métropolitaine to refer to the country's largest aires urbaines.

The largest cities in France, in terms of urban area population, are Paris (12,292,900), Lyon (2,182,482), Marseille (1,721,031), Toulouse (1,250,251), Lille (1,159,547), Bordeaux (1,140,668), Nice (1,003,947), Nantes (884,275), Strasbourg (763,739) and Rennes (679,866).

Panorama of Paris as seen from the Eiffel Tower as full 180-degree view (river flowing from north-east to south-west, right to left)

Germany

Germany has a number of large cities. There are 11 officially recognised metropolitan regions in Germany – and since 2006, 34 potential cities were identified which can be called a Regiopolis.

The largest conurbation is the Rhine-Ruhr region (11.7 million in 2008), including Düsseldorf (the capital of North Rhine-Westphalia), Cologne, Bonn, Dortmund, Essen, Duisburg, and Bochum.

Largest cities or towns in Germany Federal Statistical Office of Germany - Destatis (Census 2022)
	Rank	Name	State	Pop.	Rank	Name	State	Pop.
Berlin Hamburg	1	Berlin	Berlin	3,596,999	11	Essen	North Rhine-Westphalia	571,039	Munich Cologne
	2	Hamburg	Hamburg	1,808,846	12	Dresden	Saxony	557,782
	3	Munich	Bavaria	1,478,638	13	Nuremberg	Bavaria	522,554
	4	Cologne	North Rhine-Westphalia	1,017,355	14	Hanover	Lower Saxony	513,291
	5	Frankfurt	Hesse	743,268	15	Duisburg	North Rhine-Westphalia	501,415
	6	Düsseldorf	North Rhine-Westphalia	611,258	16	Wuppertal	North Rhine-Westphalia	356,768
	7	Stuttgart	Baden-Württemberg	610,458	17	Bochum	North Rhine-Westphalia	354,288
	8	Leipzig	Saxony	598,899	18	Bielefeld	North Rhine-Westphalia	330,072
	9	Dortmund	North Rhine-Westphalia	598,246	19	Bonn	North Rhine-Westphalia	321,544
	10	Bremen	Bremen	575,071	20	Mannheim	Baden-Württemberg	313,693

India

Kolkata, India

For the Census of India 2011, the definition of urban area is as follows:

1. All places with a municipality, corporation, cantonment board or notified town area committee, etc.
2. All other places which satisfied the following criteria:

1. A minimum population of 5,000;
2. At least 75% of the male main working population engaged in non-agricultural pursuits; and
3. A density of population of at least 400 persons per sq. km.

Panoramic view of Delhi, the capital of India

Source: A PDF file named '1. Data Highlight' accessed on 11 April 2012 from Census of India, 2011 The figure below is the population statistic for the year 2011. This is a list of city population and it does not indicate urban agglomeration population.

Japan

In Japan urbanized areas are defined as contiguous areas of densely inhabited districts (DIDs) using census enumeration districts as units with a density requirement of 4,000 inhabitants per square kilometre (10,000/sq mi).

Panoramic view of Shinjuku and Mount Fuji taken from Bunkyo Civic Center in Tokyo, the most populous urban area in the world.

Largest cities or towns in Japan 2015 Census
Rank	Name	Prefecture	Pop.	Rank	Name	Prefecture	Pop.
1	Tokyo	Tokyo	9,272,740	11	Hiroshima	Hiroshima	1,194,034
2	Yokohama	Kanagawa	3,724,844	12	Sendai	Miyagi	1,082,159
3	Osaka	Osaka	2,691,185	13	Chiba	Chiba	971,882
4	Nagoya	Aichi	2,295,638	14	Kitakyushu	Fukuoka	961,286
5	Sapporo	Hokkaido	1,952,356	15	Sakai	Osaka	839,310
6	Fukuoka	Fukuoka	1,538,681	16	Niigata	Niigata	810,157
7	Kobe	Hyōgo	1,537,272	17	Hamamatsu	Shizuoka	797,980
8	Kawasaki	Kanagawa	1,475,213	18	Kumamoto	Kumamoto	740,822
9	Kyoto	Kyoto	1,475,183	19	Sagamihara	Kanagawa	720,780
10	Saitama	Saitama	1,263,979	20	Okayama	Okayama	719,474

The Netherlands

The Netherlands is the 24th most densely populated country in the world, with 404.6 inhabitants per square kilometre (1,048/sq mi)—or 497 inhabitants per square kilometre (1,287/sq mi) if only the land area is counted. The Randstad is the country's largest conurbation located in the west of the country and contains the four largest cities: Amsterdam in the province North Holland, Rotterdam and The Hague in the province South Holland, and Utrecht in the province Utrecht. The Randstad has a population of 7 million inhabitants and is the 6th largest metropolitan area in Europe.

Largest municipalities in the Netherlands Statistics Netherlands
	Rank	Name	Province	Pop.	Rank	Name	Province	Pop.
Amsterdam Rotterdam	1	Amsterdam	North Holland	931,298	11	Apeldoorn	Gelderland	168,211	The Hague Utrecht
	2	Rotterdam	South Holland	670,610	12	Haarlem	North Holland	167,636
	3	The Hague	South Holland	566,221	13	Arnhem	Gelderland	167,632
	4	Utrecht	Utrecht	374,238	14	Haarlemmermeer	North Holland	163,128
	5	Eindhoven	North Brabant	246,417	15	Amersfoort	Utrecht	161,852
	6	Groningen	Groningen	243,768	16	Enschede	Overijssel	161,738
	7	Tilburg	North Brabant	229,836	17	Zaanstad	North Holland	161,389
	8	Almere	Flevoland	226,500	18	's-Hertogenbosch	North Brabant	160,757
	9	Breda	North Brabant	188,078	19	Zwolle	Overijssel	133,141
	10	Nijmegen	Gelderland	187,049	20	Leeuwarden	Friesland	128,810

Norway

Statistics Norway defines urban areas ("tettsteder") similarly to the other Nordic countries. Unlike in Denmark and Sweden, the distance between each building has to be of less than 50 m, although exceptions are made due to parks, industrial areas, rivers, and similar. Groups of houses less than 400 m from the main body of an urban area are included in the urban area.

Philippines

With an estimated population of 16.3 million, Metro Manila is the most populous metropolitan area in the Philippines and the 11th in the world. However, the greater urban area is the 5th largest in the world with a population of 20,654,307 people (2010 estimate). Including Metro Manila, the Philippines has twelve metropolitan areas as defined by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA). Metro Angeles, Metro Bacolod, Metro Baguio, Metro Batangas, Metro Cagayan de Oro, Metro Cebu, Metro Dagupan, Metro Davao, Metro Iloilo-Guimaras, Metro Naga, Metro Olongapo.

Poland

In Poland, official "urban" population figures simply refer to those localities which have the status of towns (miasta). The "rural" population is that of all areas outside the boundaries of these towns. This distinction may give a misleading impression in some cases, since some localities with only village status may have acquired larger and denser populations than many smaller towns. Template:Largest cities of Poland

Russia

In Russia, only the population residing in cities/towns and urban-type settlements is considered to be "urban". The city/town/urban-settlement designation means usually that the majority of the population is employed in areas other than agriculture, but the exact definitions vary from one federal subject to another.

Singapore

Singapore is an island city-state in Southeast Asia. About 5.2 million people live and work within 700 square kilometres (270 sq mi), making Singapore the 3rd-most-densely populated country in the world after Monaco, another city-state. The entire island functions as a single metropolitan area. The city centre near the south of the island is surrounded by satellite towns, parks, reservoirs and industrial estates, which are connected to the centre and each other by a dense network of roads, expressways and metro railway lines dubbed MRT by locals. Singapore has a highly centralised, unitary government with a unicameral legislature (the City Council and the Rural Board were abolished in the 1960s). While there are town councils and mayors in Singapore, these are essentially property managers in charge of the maintenance of public housing within their constituency boundaries. They do not represent local authorities with any legislative or executive autonomy from the national government.

South Africa

Largest cities or towns in South Africa 2016 Community Survey , World Urbanization Prospects: The 2018 Revision
	Rank	Name	Province	Pop.
Johannesburg Cape Town	1	Johannesburg	Gauteng	9,167,045	Durban Pretoria
	2	Cape Town	Western Cape	4,004,793
	3	Durban	KwaZulu-Natal	3,661,911
	4	Pretoria	Gauteng	2,437,000
	5	Gqeberha	Eastern Cape	1,263,051
	6	Vereeniging	Gauteng	957,528
	7	Soshanguve	Gauteng	841,000
	8	East London	Eastern Cape	810,528
	9	Bloemfontein	Free State	759,693
	10	Pietermaritzburg	KwaZulu-Natal	679,766

South Korea

The largest cities of South Korea have an autonomous status equivalent to that of provinces. Seoul, the largest city and capital, is classified as a teukbyeolsi (Special City), while the next 6 largest cities (see the list below) are classified as gwangyeoksi (Metropolitan Cities; see Special cities of South Korea). Smaller cities are classified as si ("cities") and are under provincial jurisdiction, at the same level as counties (see Administrative divisions of South Korea).

Sweden

Urban areas in Sweden (tätorter) are statistically defined localities, totally independent of the administrative subdivision of the country. There are 1956 such localities in Sweden, with a population ranging from 200 to 1,372,000 inhabitants.

Taiwan

Main article: List of cities in Taiwan

The figures below are the 2011 estimates for the twenty largest urban populations within administrative city limits; a different ranking exists when considering the total metropolitan area populations (in such rankings the Taipei-Keelung metro area is by far the largest agglomeration).

United Kingdom

Main article: List of urban areas in the United Kingdom

Apartment buildings in Kensington Gore, London

The United Kingdom's Office for National Statistics has produced census results from urban areas since 1951, since 1981 based upon the extent of irreversible urban development indicated on Ordnance Survey maps. The definition is an extent of at least 20 ha and at least 1,500 census residents. Separate areas are linked if less than 200 m (220 yd) apart. Included are transportation features. The UK has five Urban Areas with a population over a million and a further sixty nine with a population over one hundred thousand.

United States

New York City is the most populous city in the United States and it is also the most populous metropolitan area in the United States.

Main article: United States urban area

In the United States, there are two categories of urban area. The term urbanized area denotes an urban area of 50,000 or more people. Urban areas under 50,000 people are called urban clusters. Urbanized areas were first delineated in the United States in the 1950 census, while urban clusters were added in the 2000 census. There are 1,371 urban areas and urban clusters with more than 10,000 people.

The U.S. Census Bureau defines an urban area as: "Core census block groups or blocks that have a population density of at least 1,000 people per square mile (386 per square kilometer) and surrounding census blocks that have an overall density of at least 500 people per square mile (193 per square kilometer)."

The largest urban area in the United States is the New York City metropolitan area. The population of the core city exceeds 8 million people, its metropolitan statistical area has a population that is over 19 million, and its combined statistical area population is over 22 million. The next five largest urban areas in the U.S. are Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Philadelphia, and Dallas. About 82 percent of the population of the United States lives within the boundaries of an urbanized area as of December, 2010. Combined, these areas occupy about 2 percent of the United States. Many Americans live in agglomerations of cities, suburbs, and towns that are adjacent to a metropolitan area's largest city.

The concept of Urbanized Areas as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau is often used as a more accurate gauge of the size of a city, since in different cities and states the lines between city borders and the urbanized area of that city are often not the same. For example, the city of Greenville, South Carolina has a city population over 60,000 and an urbanized area population of over 400,000, while Greensboro, North Carolina has a city population over 200,000 and an urbanized area population of around 310,000 — meaning that Greenville is actually "larger" for some intents and purposes, but not for others, such as taxation, local elections, etc.

In the U.S. Department of Agriculture's natural resources inventory, urban areas are officially known as developed areas or urban and built-up areas. Such areas include cities, ethnic villages, other built-up areas of more than 10 ac (4 ha), industrial sites, railroad yards, cemeteries, airports, golf courses, shooting ranges, institutional and public administration sites, and similar areas. The 1997 national resources inventory placed over 98,000,000 ac (40,000,000 ha) in this category, an increase of 25,000,000 ac (10,000,000 ha) since 1982.

Vietnam

Main article: List of cities in Vietnam

See also

• Developed environments
  • Central business district
  • City
  • Exurban
  • Global city
  • Metropolitan area
  • Rural
  • Suburban
  • Town
  • Urban agglomeration
• Architecture
• Rapid transit
• Urban biosphere reserve
• Urban climatology
• Urban culture
• Urban decay
• Urban planning
• Urban renewal
• Urban sprawl
• Urbanization

Lists:

• List of metro systems
• List of urban areas by population
• Largest urban areas of the European Union
• List of cities in the People's Republic of China by urban population
• List of United States urban areas
• List of conurbations in the United Kingdom
• List of urban areas in Norway by population
• List of urban areas in the Nordic countries
• List of the 100 largest urban areas in Canada by population
• List of urban areas in Denmark by population
• Ranked list of New Zealand main urban areas

External links

• United Nations Statistics Division (UNSTAT): Definition of "urban"
• World Urban Areas All identified world urbanized areas 500,000+ and others: Population & Density.
• Geopolis: research group, University of Paris-Diderot, France for world urban areas
• Gridded Population of the World – contains links to urban area definitions and maps for over 230 countries/territories
• City Mayors – The World's Largest Urban Areas in 2006
• City Mayors – The World's Largest Urban Areas Projected for 2020
• PopulationData - World's largest urban areas 1,000,000+ population