Puntos Clave
- El informe de la ONU sitúa a Yakarta casi 42 millones de habitantes, convirtiéndola en la mayor ciudad mundial.
- Daca sube al segundo lugar con casi 40 millones, impulsada por la migración rural y efectos climáticos.
- El estudio registra 33 megaciudades en 2025, con nueve de las diez primeras ubicadas en Asia.
(JAKARTA, INDONESIA) Indonesia’s capital city, Jakarta, has officially become the world’s largest city, surpassing Tokyo, which has fallen to third place, according to the United Nations’ World Urbanization Prospects 2025 report released on November 18, 2025. Jakarta’s population now stands at nearly 42 million people, making it the most populous urban area on the planet. Dhaka, Bangladesh, ranks second with almost 40 million residents, while Tokyo sits in third place with about 33 million. The news places Jakarta at the center of a shifting map of global urban growth and underscores the continued concentration of people in Asian megacities.
The UN report, produced by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), highlights a dramatic realignment of megacities worldwide. Nine of the top 10 megacities by population are now located in Asia, a region that dominates both current urban scale and future growth. Dhaka is projected to become the world’s largest city by 2050, overtaking Jakarta in the longer horizon of the study. The roster of other megacities in the top 10 includes New Delhi, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Manila, Kolkata, Seoul, and Cairo, with Cairo standing out as the only non-Asian city in the leading group.
The data show that the global count of megacities has quadrupled since 1975, rising from 8 to 33 in 2025, with Asia accounting for 19 of them. The broader context, the UN explains, is that urbanization is accelerating: cities now house about 45% of the world’s 8.2 billion people. By 2050, two-thirds of global population growth is expected to take place in urban areas, and the number of megacities is projected to reach 37. This shift signals a fundamental change in where people live and work, with implications for infrastructure, housing, transportation, and public services across the region and beyond.
Jakarta’s ascent is attributed to sustained urban migration and natural population growth. The megacity’s expansion continues despite efforts in other parts of Asia to curb growth or to manage it more effectively through planning, housing policies, and investment in transit networks. In contrast, Tokyo’s population dynamics have remained relatively stable in recent years, reflecting a different set of demographic patterns, including aging and long-standing urban land-use choices. The UN’s new methodology, described as a “contiguous agglomeration” approach, defines megacities using grid cells with at least 1,500 inhabitants per square kilometer and a total population of at least 50,000. This refined method emphasizes the spatial coherence of urban areas and helps explain why Jakarta and Tokyo—though both large—are measured in such starkly different terms under the current framework.
The report’s projections offer a stark look at where future growth may occur. Dhaka’s trajectory, in particular, is highlighted as a dramatic example of rural-to-urban migration intensified by climate-change pressures such as flooding and rising sea levels. In Dhaka, as in other Asian megacities, the draw of opportunity coexists with challenges of housing affordability, informal settlements, and pressure on essential services. The dynamic is not merely about population counts; it is about the social and economic ecosystems that populations create as they cluster in dense urban cores.
While Jakarta now headlines the list, the human impact of the shift remains a central concern for planners and policymakers. The UN DESA analysis notes that the concentration of millions of residents in a few megacities intensifies the demand for reliable public transport, clean water, waste management, and affordable housing. It also raises questions about resilience in the face of climate risks and economic shocks, as large urban populations depend on cascading systems that must adapt to rapid change. In cities like Jakarta, policymakers are pressed to translate this growth into livable, inclusive spaces where residents can access jobs, education, and healthcare without sacrificing quality of life.
Analysts and local officials in Jakarta have welcomed the headline moment as a milestone that could attract investment and attention to the city’s development agenda. At the same time, they stress that the reality on the ground involves pressing needs: affordable housing, job creation for new migrants, and the modernization of transport networks to reduce congestion and pollution. In Tokyo, by contrast, authorities have focused on sustaining a high standard of services while managing demographic aging and maintaining the city’s global financial and technological roles. Dhaka’s authorities, facing rapid growth, emphasize the urgency of infrastructure expansion, flood protection, and housing strategies that can accommodate a swelling population without eroding social stability.
The implications extend beyond national borders. As Asia becomes the epicenter of megacity prevalence, regional policymakers are increasingly coordinating on transit corridors, climate resilience, and urban planning standards that can guide growth in the decades to come. The United Nations points to a broader trend: the world’s urban population is expanding, and megacities are multiplying, with substantial implications for global trade, migration, and development assistance. The World Urbanization Prospects 2025 report thus serves not only as a statistical record but also as a policy signal for cities that are preparing for the challenges and opportunities of rapid urban expansion.
Dhaka’s and Jakarta’s trajectories are intertwined with climate dynamics, migration patterns, and economic ambitions across Asia. For Dhaka, climate impacts intensify rural-to-urban migration, as residents seek climate-resilient livelihoods and better living standards. In Jakarta, the ongoing expansion reflects a combination of natural growth and internal migration from across Indonesia and neighboring regions. The shift to a contiguous agglomeration model aims to capture the real, lived geography of cities, which in practice means that planners must consider densely packed districts, interconnected neighborhoods, and the often-complex web of transportation and housing networks that sustain such large populations.
The report also presents a wide lens on how megacities contribute to global development. With nine of the top 10 megacities in Asia, the region’s role in the world economy is underscored, even as cities face mounting pressures. The UN DESA analysis emphasizes that urban areas are engines of employment, innovation, and cultural exchange, but their benefits come with responsibilities. As Jakarta and Dhaka exemplify, megacity status amplifies both opportunity and risk, from infrastructure needs to environmental sustainability, from social inclusion to governance capacity.
In the wake of the UN’s release, observers note the importance of translating statistical insights into concrete policy actions. This includes improving transit connectivity, expanding housing supply in ways that protect vulnerable communities, and ensuring that city services keep pace with growth. It also involves regional collaboration, so that cities connected by economic corridors or shared climate risks can align their strategies for growth, resilience, and inclusive development. The data, after all, are not just numbers; they represent millions of individual stories—families seeking steadier livelihoods, students aiming for better schools, workers pursuing new opportunities in sectors shaped by global demand.
For residents of Jakarta, the changing ranking may bring a mix of pride and pressure. A city well known for its sprawling urban mass, traffic jams, and vibrant street life, Jakarta now occupies a place on the world stage that invites both investment and accountability. Citizens in Tokyo, Dhaka, and other megacities watch similar trends with equal parts interest and concern, recognizing that demographic realities are reshaping city life and necessitating smarter governance. The UN DESA’s methodology, by highlighting a more contiguous sense of city boundaries, also invites renewed attention to how urban spaces are planned and funded, especially as climate risks become more acute in densely populated zones.
As the world’s megacities continue to grow, Jakarta’s ascent to the top of the list is a reminder that urbanization remains the defining trend of the 21st century. It highlights Asia’s burgeoning influence on global patterns of life, work, and movement, and it underscores the stakes for Dhaka as it approaches a future in which it could become the world’s largest city by 2050. The implications extend to the corridors linking Jakarta with regional hubs, to the cross-Pacific exchanges that connect Tokyo with neighboring economies, and to the daily realities of residents who navigate crowded streets, crowded trains, and crowded markets in a city that is now, in the eyes of the world, the largest on earth.
For readers seeking further context, the United Nations World Urbanization Prospects 2025 report provides comprehensive data and projections that underpin these rankings. More details are available through the official UN DESA channels, which discuss the methodology and the implications of the “contiguous agglomeration” approach used to define megacities. In line with the report’s country-level and city-level insights, policymakers in Jakarta, Tokio, and Dhaka are already weighing how to translate these numbers into practical upgrades—new transit lines, flood defenses, housing programs, and social services that can absorb a population surge while preserving quality of life.
The demographic shift also poses questions about the global balance of power and opportunity. If Dhaka, Jakarta, and other Asian metropolises continue to outpace counterparts in growth and scale, international collaboration will be essential to fund, design, and implement resilient urban systems. The UN DESA projections suggest that by 2050, two-thirds of the world’s population growth will occur in cities, and the number of megacities is projected to reach 37. The pattern offers a lens into where people are likely to be concentrated, where jobs will be created, and where the pressures of climate adaptation will be most acute. It is a reminder that urban life—its speed, its density, its vibrancy—will define the experience of billions of people in the decades to come.
For Jakarta, the moment invites both celebration and responsibility. The city now sits at the hinge of a broader transformation, as Asia’s megacity landscape becomes the central stage for how humanity will accommodate growth, movement, and opportunity in a rapidly changing climate. The surrounding region, and the cities within it, will watch closely how Jakarta leverages its new status: whether it can translate population heft into sustainable development, inclusive growth, and resilient infrastructure that can withstand floods, traffic pressure, and the next wave of urban demand.
In summary, the UN DESA report’s designation of Jakarta as the world’s largest city, with Tokyo receding to third place, anchors a broader narrative about where people live, how they move, and what kind of cities the future will demand. Dhaka’s ascent to second place and its projection to become the largest city by 2050 signal a region undergoing rapid transformation driven by migration, climate pressures, and development ambitions. As these megacities expand, they will shape not only local life but also the rhythms of regional economies and global patterns of migration, trade, and cultural exchange. The tale of Jakarta, Tokio, and Dhaka thus becomes a story about humanity’s ongoing adaptation to urban life at unprecedented scale. For researchers, policymakers, and citizens alike, the numbers are not merely counts but a call to plan, invest, and imagine cities that can sustain people today and tomorrow.
Official sources and further reading can be found through UN DESA’s World Urbanization Prospects 2025, which outlines the contiguous agglomeration approach and offers the underlying data for the rankings described above. To explore related context and official projections, see the United Nations DESA page on World Urbanization Prospects 2025, which provides the methodology and the expanded city and country tables. World Urbanization Prospects 2025
Aprende Hoy
ONU → Organización de las Naciones Unidas, productora de datos y análisis sobre población y urbanización.
Megaciudad → Área urbana con 10 millones o más de habitantes según la definición de la ONU.
Aglomeración contigua → Método que define ciudades por áreas urbanas continuas y densamente pobladas.
Migración rural-urbana → Desplazamiento de personas del campo a la ciudad, frecuentemente por empleo o factores ambientales.
Este Artículo en Resumen
El informe World Urbanization Prospects 2025 sitúa a Yakarta como la ciudad más poblada con casi 42 millones, seguida por Daca y Tokio. Registra 33 megaciudades, la mayoría en Asia, y prevé 37 para 2050. La metodología de aglomeración contigua mide áreas urbanas continuas, revelando la verdadera extensión metropolitana y subrayando desafíos urgentes en vivienda, transporte y adaptación climática.
— Por VisaVerge.com
