The largest cities in 2025
Each figure covers the whole built-up city, not only its municipality. Select a city to find it on the map.
How we count a city
A city here is a continuous built-up area where at least 50,000 people live at a density of at least 1,500 people per square kilometre. The same rule is applied everywhere, so Lagos and Lyon are measured alike.
That is why some cities look larger than you expect. Tokyo includes Yokohama and Saitama because they form one continuous city; Guangzhou includes Shenzhen, Foshan and Dongguan. Point at a light to see which places it includes.
Figures from 1975 to 2025 are estimates built from satellite and census data; 2030 is a projection. Each light sits at the centre of its urban area.
What comes next
Each week we turn one question into an animated map, starting with how Europe's largest cities have grown since 1975.
A profile for every city, with its history in numbers and the films it appears in, is on its way.
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