Largest Urban Agglomerations in the World

[The Chemist]

There's no way that Guangzhou's urban agglomeration population exceeds that of Shanghai, especially by the amount shown in this list.

[BnaBreaker]

Originally Posted by The Chemist

There's no way that Guangzhou's urban agglomeration population exceeds that of Shanghai, especially by the amount shown in this list.

I'm assuming that figure also includes Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Foshan, Dongguan etc. though.

As an aside, I had no idea that Johannesburg was so massive! Wow.

Also, what does "Ruhr" refer to? When I first saw it I was assuming it meant the Dusseldorf region, but that area was included a bit further down the list.

[SLO]

Originally Posted by BnaBreaker

I'm assuming that figure also includes Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Foshan, Dongguan etc. though.

As an aside, I had no idea that Johannesburg was so massive! Wow.

Also, what does "Ruhr" refer to? When I first saw it I was assuming it meant the Dusseldorf region, but that area was included a bit further down the list.

Hong Kong is also on the list, but who knows. I have never seen numbers like that for Guangzhou either.

[chris08876]

Originally Posted by SLO

Hong Kong is also on the list, but who knows. I have never seen numbers like that for Guangzhou either.

I think they recently had a lot of annexations. Into one giant urban megacity. For Guangzhou.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by isaidso

I'm surprised that there's a 665,000 difference between urban area and CMA. There are a lot more people in those 'empty' bits than I thought. Would either of you know what the area of this is?

Me too, specially as Canadian urban areas are very well defined, unlike the American ones with endless sprawl, making it difficult to tell what's suburban, what's rural, what's woodlands.

According to Demographia, this area has 2,300 km² for a 2,800 inh/km² density, by far the highest in North America minus Mexico.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by BnaBreaker

I'm assuming that figure also includes Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Foshan, Dongguan etc. though.

As an aside, I had no idea that Johannesburg was so massive! Wow.

Also, what does "Ruhr" refer to? When I first saw it I was assuming it meant the Dusseldorf region, but that area was included a bit further down the list.

All that, but not Hong Kong. That in City Population. On Demographia, it's only Guangzhou-Foshan. Dongguan and Shenzhen are separated.

Ruhr (City Population) is Duisburg-Essen-Dortmund. Essen-Düsseldorf (Demographia) is Ruhr + Düsseldorf region.

To me, they all should be bring together Ruhr+Düsseldorf+Cologne, specially as in one of the list, they bring Pearl Delta Area together.

[dc_denizen]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

Me too, specially as Canadian urban areas are very well defined, unlike the American ones with endless sprawl, making it difficult to tell what's suburban, what's rural, what's woodlands.

According to Demographia, this area has 2,300 km² for a 2,800 inh/km² density, by far the highest in North America minus Mexico.

by far? ever heard of Los Angeles or SF?

compact city on the left, endless sprawl on the right, folks..

http://mapmerizer.mikavaa.com/#11;51...se;false;false

maybe you should leave this exercise to somewhere with a better command of US cities..

[Nouvellecosse]

Don't tell me you're still trying to mislead people with that aerial comparison site. If you're interested in actual information, you can easily find learn that Calgary is over twice as dense as SLC even though Calgary city limits covers most its metro area and SLC only covers a small portion.

As for the aerials, SLC metro is long and thin due to being constrained by the mountains and Calgary is basically round. All the aerial is showing of SLC is the central portion and cuts off the long expanse of sprawl to the north and south.

Maybe you should leave this exercise to someone willing to use actual data rather than the misleading and deceptive types of comparisons you've already been called out for using several times before.

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

by far? ever heard of Los Angeles or SF?

compact city on the left, endless sprawl on the right, folks..

http://mapmerizer.mikavaa.com/#11;51...se;false;false

maybe you should leave this exercise to somewhere with a better command of US cities..

Then there's Las Vegas. About the same urban footprint as Edmonton and Calgary, except Las Vegas crams 1 million more people.

http://mapmerizer.mikavaa.com/#11;53...se;false;false

[dc_denizen]

^ good point. the definition of sprawl has become stretched here to become meaningless.

the salt lake urban area includes the separate cities of ogden and provo, with a population of 2.3 million. these are not shown in the photo, which includes only SLC's urban area of around 1.1 million.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

by far? ever heard of Los Angeles or SF?

compact city on the left, endless sprawl on the right, folks..

http://mapmerizer.mikavaa.com/#11;51...se;false;false

maybe you should leave this exercise to somewhere with a better command of US cities..

Los Angeles appears with 6,299 km² for a 2,300 people/km² density. It's an "Atlanta of distance" from Toronto.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

Then there's Las Vegas. About the same urban footprint as Edmonton and Calgary, except Las Vegas crams 1 million more people.

http://mapmerizer.mikavaa.com/#11;53...se;false;false

Las Vegas footprint (1,080 km²) is twice the size of Calgary (586 km²) or Edmonton (583 km²). Both are denser than Las Vegas.

[Spocket]

Originally Posted by The Chemist

There's no way that Guangzhou's urban agglomeration population exceeds that of Shanghai, especially by the amount shown in this list.

How doesn't it? I think the problem here is definitions rather than anything that anybody can actually see. If you look at a satellite photograph, that area of the world is the biggest city on the planet. As I recall there's something like 120 million people in a contiguous, high density urban megalopolis there with only tiny gaps (which are only gaps depending on whether or not you think the gaps can qualify as urban) It's probably the best example of a megalopolis anywhere. If we decide it's only 30 million then where are we drawing our lines here?

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by Spocket

How doesn't it? I think the problem here is definitions rather than anything that anybody can actually see. If you look at a satellite photograph, that area of the world is the biggest city on the planet. As I recall there's something like 120 million people in a contiguous, high density urban megalopolis there with only tiny gaps (which are only gaps depending on whether or not you think the gaps can qualify as urban) It's probably the best example of a megalopolis anywhere. If we decide it's only 30 million then where are we drawing our lines here?

If you're going to include places like Dongguan, Zhongshan, Foshan, etc, with Guangzhou, then you have to include places like Kunshan, Wuxi, Jiaxing, Suzhou, Changzhou, etc, with Shanghai. I've been to the PRD, and I live in the Yangtze River delta. The Yangtze River delta is just as contiguous high density urbanity as the Pearl River Delta is.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Spocket

How doesn't it? I think the problem here is definitions rather than anything that anybody can actually see. If you look at a satellite photograph, that area of the world is the biggest city on the planet. As I recall there's something like 120 million people in a contiguous, high density urban megalopolis there with only tiny gaps (which are only gaps depending on whether or not you think the gaps can qualify as urban) It's probably the best example of a megalopolis anywhere. If we decide it's only 30 million then where are we drawing our lines here?

This number is bogus. The entire Guangdong province, which is the size of England+Wales, has 108 million people, mostly rural. Foshan-Guangzhou-Dongguan-Shenzhen put together have 45 million.

[dc_denizen]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

Las Vegas footprint (1,080 km²) is twice the size of Calgary (586 km²) or Edmonton (583 km²). Both are denser than Las Vegas.

Vegas is as about as dense as Edmonton (4500 vs 4800 per square mile), nor does it have ‘endless sprawl’...like most western US cities it’s very compact

[N90]

The PRD and YRD aren't metro areas or urban areas.

They're megalopolises.

http://www.china-briefing.com/news/c...l-river-delta/

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

Ruhr (City Population) is Duisburg-Essen-Dortmund. Essen-Düsseldorf (Demographia) is Ruhr + Düsseldorf region.

To me, they all should be bring together Ruhr+Düsseldorf+Cologne, specially as in one of the list, they bring Pearl Delta Area together.

The Rhein-Ruhr is a singular population agglomeration, but no one would consider themselves part of the same region. Cologne and Düsseldorf are historically very different (economy, food, religion, accent, sport) and the Ruhr is quite distinct from the other two.

Cologne-Bonn is a "metro" in the U.S. sense, and possibly the Ruhr excluding Düsseldorf.

In Germany everything can change in 10 km; in the U.S. you can drive for 200 km and nothing changes. Another difference is that all cities are separated by "rural" land, even two cities with adjacent political boundaries, as in Ruhr, so there is never continuous development.

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by N90

The PRD and YRD aren't metro areas or urban areas.

They're megalopolises.

http://www.china-briefing.com/news/c...l-river-delta/

In the US sense they'd probably both be considered metro areas, given the continuous nature of development and the interconnectedness of the cities in the regions (both by expressway and by high speed / commuter rail).

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Vegas is as about as dense as Edmonton (4500 vs 4800 per square mile), nor does it have ‘endless sprawl’...like most western US cities it’s very compact

True. Take a look at this graphic from the census. Mile 14: 4600 ppsm. After mile 16 the population is zero. Las Vegas [pop 2.3 million] goes from steady solid density levels to zero.

https://www.census.gov/dataviz/visualizations/054/