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PLEASE READ New Source Dispute BEFORE EDITING THE ARTICLE


Understanding Metropolitan Areas

It is true that there is no standard international definition for metropolitan areas. Demographers generally agree, however, that a metropolitan area is a labor market. They are generally larger than areas of continous urbanisation (called urban areas, urbanised areas or agglomerations), but sometimes not. For example, there is nearly continuous urbanisation from Hartford, CT to south of Wilmington, DE. But this is by no means a single labour market. The US Census Bureau breaks it into three principal metropolitan areas --- Hartford, NYC and Philadelphia.

Some nations do have metropolitan area standards, which are appropriate for comparison within the countries, but strictly not outside. Such countries include, but are not limited to the US, Canada, France, Brazil, Argentina and India. The UK measures urban areas, as also do the US, Canada, France and Australia (there called urban centres).

Thus, comparisons of international metropolitan areas must be carefully undertaken and include appropriate cautions.

That being said, the present list is slow flawed as to be highly misleading. Some examples...

1. The list includes a number of urbanised areas. What are urbanised areas doing in a list of metropolitan areas? It would make as much sense to put a few national provinces in the list.

This is a good point. The UN report is actually closer to a list or urban areas rather than metropolitan areas. But in the absence of an authoritative and well-documented source, this seems like the best compromise. I realize there are other sources such as demographia.com but the tabulations are not public domain and the area definitions (i.e. what is included and what is not) are not well-documented.

2. NYC is 3m short of the census data. 3. LA is 5m short of the census data.

The numbers for all US cities are census data for the urbanized area, which the US Census also tabulates. They are not the same as the metropolitan statistical area figures.

4. Manila is way low. The Manila metropolitan area (and even the urbanised area) extends far beyond the boundaries of the National Capital Region (Metro Manila)

That is true but there is not one single definition as to which municipalities in the adjacent provinces to include. The census office also does not tabulate an entity larger than Metro Manila to represent the metropolitan area of Manila.

5. The Osaka-Kobe metro area is really the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area, and has about 6 million more than listed here. The OKK metropolitan area includes Nara and Himeji.

These again are urban areas. The Statistics Office publishes a list of cities/towns/villages included in the urban area.

6. The London number is about 40 percent low. The London metropolitan area (labour market area) extends beyond the greenbelt. A common definition is to use the counties bordering on the greenbelt (including the unitary authorities that have been created from the counties) as well as the GLA to form the London metro area.

The London figure is for the urban area but the UN report uses 1991 census data. The projections are lower than the most recent census (2001).

7. It is without reason to list the area or population density of a metropolitan area where there is no standard. This is evidenced by the US, where the "county build up" creates huge variations in density. The LA consolidated area has about 30,000 square miles, most of which is desert. Why? Because that's how the county lines are drawn. If the metropolitan area were instead defined by census tract or even municipalities, it would be far smaller. At the same time, the Canadians develop their metropolitan areas at the commune level, which means that they are much smaller in area than in the US on average.

Here is some official data...

Wendell Cox 20051220 wcox@demographia.com

See responses after each numbered item above. Polaron 02:33, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Regions or Metro areas

This article has a severe problem with mixing regions with metro areas. A good example is Los Angeles, the Great Los Angeles Metro area, The Southland, and then Southern California are three different things. If it's Metro area the list should only include Los Angeles and Orange Counties with a population of around 13 million. When clicking on the Southern California page I quickly learned this estimate also includes San Diego and its metropolitan area, which is also listed at #70, so basically San Diego is listed twice. This number is quite flawed to begin with, why not add Phildadelphia to New York's metro since the areas flow together, or Milwaukee to Chicago's? I'm sure this sort of ridiculous rounding up has occured on other cities besides just LA. This needs to be corrected unless we are doing this by region and not by Metropolitan Areas. 1:40 September 4, 2005

Regarding Los Angeles' population, I defend the United Nations accuracy, as it DOES NOT include San Diego. The United States Census Bureau defines metropolitan areas for the USA, for Los Angeles, this is DEFINED AS Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Bernardino County and Riverside County. A case could be made that Barstow is not in Los Angeles, but its inclusion or exclusion is not significant. Specifically, it refers to CMSA, or Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area, which itself is made up of MSA's or Metropolitan Statistical Areas. The Census Bureau redefines them periodically as required.

'Large atlases and geographical societies worldwide have generally agreed on the definition of a metropolitan area as that of continual buildup and commuting to the central city as reasons for inclusion as a suburb and not a separate city, and there are people who spend their entire careers choosing to add suburbs to the count or not, and I generally trust their expert judgement. Of course, as cities are not static, and numbers change continually, urban slums may never have had a count, twin cities across international borders, rural areas included in urban counts, and situations arise that test the definitions, unstable nations may have irregular or politically modified counts, incorrectly filled forms, duplicates, lack of records, false records, moving and nomadic people, city based residency, active war zones and definitions may be incompatible from year to year and country to country, thus the reason this article's accuracy is disputed. However, the world's university geography professors and geographical societies rarely argue about the definition. It seems to me this entire talk portion is filled with people who lack a geography degree, moreover, they change numbers for political rivalry. But political rivalry should not be allowed to conquer the best factual information that takes years and expensive census counts to get. Don't make a mockery of the hundreds of thousands of census workers worldwide braving elements, war, famine and disease, to reach every corner of the earth, as well as geography professors. For the sake of humanity, don't change numbers unless u have a Ph.D. in geography please....'

See bottom. DirectorStratton 15:32, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Lagos

The population of Lagos in 2000 was 13.4 million. As of today, even by conservative estimates, the population is at least 16 million, even higher by other estimates. I have tried to change this twice to reflect in the article however it keeps getting deleted, which is highly frustrating. Please check your stats.

http://www.unhabitat.org/mediacentre/documents/sowc/lagos.pdf

All listed figures in the current list are from the UN World Urbanization Prospects Report. Unless there is a concensus to use a different source, I think the numbers should be consistent with the currently cited source. There is most likely a large uncertainty in the population figure of Lagos in the UN report since the most recent census was 1991 and projections were based on 1971-1991. It is likely that when the 2005 report comes out, the numbers may be closer to what you indicate. In the meantime, my opinion is we should stick to the numbers in the report. Polaron 14:42, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Los Angeles Metro Area

True, "The Southland", "Southern California" and "Los Angeles" are 3 different things, the main differential being the inclusion or exclusion of San Diego. But in listing "metro areas", the whole of the Los Angles Metro should be included and not just "L.A., Long Beach and Santa Ana." The area comprising the "L.A. Metro" certainly does not include San Diego, anymore than the N.Y. metro contains Philadelphia. But the L.A. metro does include Los Angeles County (pop. 10,179,716), as well as Orange County (pop. 3,056,865), San Bernardino County (pop. 1,709,434), Riverside County (pop. 1,545,387) and Ventura County (pop. 791,130), all of which are suburb counties of L.A. within 50 miles of downtown. The total population of the L.A. Metro Area is 17,282,532. This does not include San Diego.

The circa 18M figure seems most appropriate to me given the boundaries wikipedia has used for other urban sprawls such as Tokyo, Paris and Frankfurt. Alongside contiguous urbanization and development, a parallel issue to consider is the integration of the population in a given area. Anyone who lives in Los Angeles, knows that people live as far out as Rancho Cucamonga or Santa Clarita and commute to work downtown. Commuting between either Santa Barbara or San Diego and downtown LA, however, is by no means a normal traffic pattern.

Clear evidence of the integration of the counties is that any serious proposed mass transit plan that would adequately address LA's congested freeways must be coordinated among the constituent counties of Orange, San Bernadino, Riverside, Los Angeles, and Ventura.


What the hell. "Los Angeles, USA 16,800,000 incl. Riverside, Anaheim"

Riverside and Anaheim are not even part of the LA metro area, let alone part of the city of LA. It is completely ridiculous to include Riverside as part of LA - it ain't in any stretch of the word. Riverside, Anaheim, LA and all cities in between are in the metropolitan REGION called Southern California (which doesn't include the greater San Diego area and therefore has a population of about 12 million). This type of exaggeration goes for the other entries here. This page might be useful if its name were changed to list of largest metropolitan regions but the term "region" might be too vague. --mav
Are you distinguishing "metro area" and "metropolitan region" in some way that I'm utterly unfamiliar with? Also I've never heard this usage of "metropolitan REGION called Southern California"; to this Southern California native the name applies to a wide area including San Diego and Riverside and lots of wide-open empty space as well as the metropoles. --Brion 07:18 Oct 27, 2002 (UTC)
Just using the definition that I use at work. Come to think of it this is different than the common usage. Metro regions do have legal definitions. --mav
Interesting. Got a cite for those of us not lucky enough to work for the state secret definitions department? ;) --Brion 07:27 Oct 27, 2002 (UTC)
I'll have to dig it up. I think it is based on continuous urbanized areas. So in 20 years when the two urbanized areas merge then legal def will conform to the common one. Patience grasshopper. ;) --mav
I think the numbers for LA are from http://www.citypopulation.de/World.html, which lists "agglomerations" defined as "a central city and neighboring communities linked to it by continuous built-up areas or by many commuters. Some agglomerations have more than one central city (e.g. "The Ruhr")." This definition seems the most logical to me in a "list of metropolitan areas by population." Because of the massive degree of interconnectedness between LA, Riverside, San Bernardino, etc... it simply makes little sense to distinguish between them as areas of population density. Certainly people in LA make distinctions between these places, but I don't think the purpose of this list is to map areas that correspond to local ideas. For example, the San Fernando Valley is largely in the city limits of Los Angeles, yet some would be more willing to include Santa Monica (which is not incorporated) as LA than The Valley. One could even argue that this definition makes sense, as Santa Monica is part of the Los Angeles Basin, whereas The Valley is not. But, whatever cultural and legal distinctions between them, we can say that there is a continuous urban region including downtown Los Angeles, Santa Monica and the San Fernando Valley (and significantly more). San Diego, on the other hand, continues to be separate from LA, and so makes sense as a separate "metropolitan area." Southern California, as I understand that term, corresponds to LA San Diego, and a host of other areas. California is normally split up into "Northern California" and "Southern California" (with the possible exception of the Central Valley). Consequently, Southern California must include all of California not in Northern California (and vice versa). I believe the term for the metropolitan area with LA as its largest city is "The Southland" (check out the wiki reference to Los Angeles).--strider
Exactly, the stastical area "The Southland" just uses Los Angeles as the base city, not everything that is part of the Southland is considered to be suburban Los Angeles. The same goes with an area like Baltimore/ DC which is essentially two central cities with a combined metropolitan population. Despite the fact that there is a large desert area between parts of it, the Southland numbers are correct. I woudln't necessarily associate "The Southland" and the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area as the same thing though.
I would really like to know where you are getting the "12 million" figure from. The area comprising the L.A. metro includes Los Angeles County (pop. 10,179,716), as well asOrange County (pop. 3,056,865), San Bernardino County (pop. 1,709,434), Riverside County (pop. 1,545,387) and Ventura County (pop. 791,130), all of which are suburb counties within 50 miles of downtown Los Angeles. The total population of the L.A. Metro Area is 17,282,532. This does not include San Diego.--DM
The UN World Urbanization Prospects report, which is the reference for the currently listed numbers, uses the US Census urbanized areas for all US cities on the list. Please see external link #3 in the 'Washington-Baltimore Metro Area' section below for the 2000 census data. The UN number is a projection from the 2000 census. Maps of the areas are also available at the US Census website if you want to know the exact extent of the urbanized area. Polaron 21:37, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
I'd just like to say, for the record, and forgive me saying this, that it doesn't really matter because the whole metropolitan region of southern California sucks.

Korean areas being moved up

Someone keeps artifically moving up Korean areas and moving down Japanese areas. Tokyo is the largest Metropolitan area in the world, Seoul is fourth, I've been consistantly replacing the wrong version on this site with the corected and fairly accurate (as far as I could research) version. And this keeps being changed. Busan also continues to be moved up with someone just guessing numbers then editing the city page and its population. They removed Los Angeles from the list making the central city Anaheim at #9 (which should actually be at #8 but Busan has been moved up to #8 artifically), if you look at the http://www.citypopulation.de/World.html site, you can tell the numbers up there for a number of cities aren't even close to correct. It's quite frusturating when you try to get the best possible information, and someone for some reason beyond comprehension makes ridiculous edits to the information in place.

That's where you're wrong. Although most people say that Tokyo has the largest metropolitan area in the world, most of them don't have exact information. Most of Tokyo's population records have been inflated due to errors in calcualting the exact population of Tokyo itself and neighboring cities, such as Yokohama. Seoul, on the other hand, has a larger metropolitan area since it itself has a population of 16 million (Seoul Metropolitan government sources say so) and neighboring cities like Incheon, Seongnam, and Gwacheon account for nearly 10 million more people.
Busan has grown in recent years due to migrant workers from neighboring regions and the new satellite cities around it. Changwon, Ulsan, and Pohang, all major cities with huge populations, all depend on Busan becuase of its powerful industrial capacity and their closeness to Busan itself. Hope this explains the changes.
What sources do you have that can indicate that Tokyo's metropolitan area is in fact inflated and that there are errors in calculation. Almost every viable source I've seen has Tokyo at over 30 million people. Also why do sources (like the one I listed above that was updated less than three months ago) state that Seoul has roughly only 22 million (with the anchor cities listed next to it). Do you have a viable source that can back up your totals? I sure couldn't find one when trying to look up your information. Also for what reason was Los Angeles removed. And I can't find ANYTHING to back up your Busan numbers at all. Also why did the initial change to Seoul list it at around 34 million, then bring it down to 27? So please provide sources (not one of the many clones / imitations of the wikipedia site which copy their data from this site and thus have your population estimates) for your numbers, an explanation of why your Busan and Seoul totals have changed between your own edits and finally an explanation for the Los Angeles removal incident.
Sorry. The Los Angeles incident was a mistake. You can put it back, if you want. But according to Korean textbooks on city populations and Wikipedia, Seoul has a much larger estimate and Tokyo a lower one since even adding up Seoul Metropolitan Area's three cities (Seoul (16), Incheon (7.5), and Seongnam (3.75)) passes twenty million, while adding up all of the Greater Tokyo Area (Tokyo (12), Yokohama (3.5), Kawasaki (1), and Chiba (3.5)) comes up to only 20 million. And by the way, I didn't edit any of those pages. Check those articles if you want.
According to the Japan Statistics Bureau (very end of the page), the Tokyo Metropolitan Area — defined as the area within 50km of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office — population was 30,724,000 in 2000. The more common definition, namely the total for Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa prefectures, gives 33,413,000. Jpatokal 16:18, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
This wasn't me (the original poster) who put up the Japanese stastistics but it looks like with an actual verifiable source Tokyo is larger. I think the stats need to be changed back until some sort of a veryfiable online source used to verify the Seoul and Busan numbers.

I've replaced the numbers placed by that weird guy and replaced them with the rankings and statistics according to your source above. By the way, I'm sorry for what I did to the various articles related to the cities mentioned here. I'll try harder to make a more factual Wikipedia from now on. Leonhart

Adding to my post above, I'm really curious about how Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto comes up to 16 million when Osaka has only 2.6, Kobe 1.5, and Kyoto 1.5, which comes up to only 5.6. I'll edit this article according to this sum, and I'll fix it if anyone can tell me more about this particular subject. In addition, I'll be moving up Busan a bit, since it's true that Busan's population has been downplayed quite a lot.

You are, again, confusing the -shi (city) with -ken/fu (prefecture) listings. The Osaka metro area is much larger than the three "cities", because most of their suburbs fall outside the city limits; as an example, Osaka-shi (221.82km²) had 2,635,172 people in 2002 while Osaka-fu (1,892.86km²) racks up 8,815,757. Jpatokal 16:54, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
This is the original poster here, I have a suspicion that the Osaka numbers have been modified down on the wikipedia pages for the areas in question. Check out this source for JUST Osaka http://www.ofix.or.jp/travel/intro/Population.html. That number DEFINITELY needs to go up as every source I've seen has the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto area at at least 15 million, so that's my best guess.
Again, the Japan Statistics Bureau (very end of page) gives Osaka metro's population as 16,567,000 in 2000. I've edited the article accordingly. Jpatokal 16:54, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

As a current resident of the Tokyo area, a former resident of the Kyoto and of Los Angeles, and as a frequest traveler to Korea, I can honestly say that anyone attempting to change the current figures for or against Japan or Korea is doing so for political reasons. If one defines a metropolitan area as a grouping of people into a common urban area, the scale of Tokyo or Osaka must be experienced to be believed. The Japanese system of urbanization is truly sprawling, going uninterupted from the city center through hundreds of kilometers outward. If there were no signs to tell one otherwise, one would think when driving or riding a train through the metro area that it is, indeed, one HUGE city. Going in one direction, this feeling can stay for hours. I contend that metro Tokyo logically consists of Tokyo, Chiba, Saitama, and Kanagawa prefectures, as well as the southern half of Ibaraki, Tochigi, and Gunma prefectures.

Seoul is a heavily populated area, but is surrounded by rural land. Driving an hour outside the city center leaves one in a completely different environment. Any attempts to incorporate the population of this surrounding area into the metro area would be done for political rather than rational reasons. There is just no consistency as there is in Japanese arrangement.

If Korean metro areas are urban islands in a sea of rurality, Japanese metro areas are continents. Using Google Earth can help anyone not living here understand this. I make this claim not as an attempt to sway the opinion towards the Japanese side as I find the sprawl and congestion NOT something to brag about. I understand the desire to show "bigger is better" in national pride and I understand the reasons some Koreans have to lower the influence of Japan in any situation, but in the realm of the problems associated with rampant urbanization I think the ease of changing one's environment is something Koreans should take pride in rather than something to hide. Smoove K 02:20, 20 October 2005 (UTC)


Quick question, and my apologies if this is in the wrong place. On the wiki page about Seoul, it lists the population of the city as over 9 million, and then says "(Metro area c. 21,000,000)." Since the list is titled "Metropolitan areas by population," why isn't the metropolitan area population of Seoul included?

  • The listed figure here (as you can see from the area definition) is just the city proper. I am not sure why the UN chooses to tabulate this figure instead the metropolitan area which includes the city of Incheon and surrounding areas in Gyeonggi province (total population 21-22 million). My guess is that there is no single/precise definition of the extent of the metropolitan area and that the National Statistics Office does not tabulate metropolitan areas. The case of Moscow in the list is the same. Polaron 16:29, 2 December 2005 (UTC)


Qingdao in China should be included (population 7.49 million according to Lonely Planet Guide: China (2002)) [User:Wolfgang Hofmeier] Oct 19, 2003

Anyone know how to make tables in Wikipedia?

Yes, and they're hideous. Please don't make this list into a table. -- Tarquin
It has already become a table, so we might as well add the HTML table elements Docu 14:23 Feb 16, 2003 (UTC)

the Rhine-Ruhr area is missing in the list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhine-Ruhr

Some of the numbers look too large, e.g.,:

London, Great Britain 11,850,000

Any idea what this includes? --Anon

Seoul is now the largest metropolitan area in the world, if graded according to population. Incheon and Seongnam, which form part of the Seoul metorpolitan area, have populations that are up to nearly 5 million each. The other regions of the Seoul metropoiltan area form about a total of about 9~11 million people. Also, the Busan metropolitan area is severely underestimated, while Osaka is severely overestmated. The Busan m.a.'s real population is higher by 6 million, while Osaka's actual population is 7 million lower. The numbers and rankings have all been changed, so no need to fret now.

Once again, where are your sources for this?

I took this off a web site somewhere which was labeled 'Largest Cities of the World'. It was on the Internet, therefore it must be right! <j/k> User:oarias

But the statistics are all wrong. Just compare the number given by the US Census 2000 and you will know: New York--21,199.365; Los Angeles--16,373,645; Chicago--9.157,540. I think we shall use more reliable sources of infomation. --formulax
There are two problems, first off those numbers are almost five years old, the second problem is that this isn't supposed to be a list of official stastics but as the page says "rough estimates based on population changes and rates."

I think the title is a bit misleading. What is "largest"? Area or population? Apparently it is population. There could be a better title, like... List of cities by population or something like that. --Lorenzarius 15:40 Jan 20, 2003 (UTC)

I moved this to List of metropolitan areas by population. 1) is it more clear as you state above 2) This has never been a list of city population; for example; the population on San Francisco is 800,000 not 7,250,000 (Oakland, San Jose and the other Bay Area cities are their own cities). --mav

In the United States, a metropolitan area includes the entire county. In the case of Los Angeles, for example, it would include all of Los Angeles County, and, since Anaheim and Riverside are included, it also includes Orange and Riverside Counties. I would have thought it included San Bernardino County, too, but I guess not. San Francisco includes at least six counties -- San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa and Marin, and possibly Solano County. -- Zoe

I think we're confusing terms. The mega-city article seems to imply that a "mega-city" is a large city+suburbs, while megalopolis is a conglomerate of cities. Both kinds are on this list. What would be a term to encompass both? Zocky 01:10 Jan 21, 2003 (UTC)

This article has come along nicely, but there still should be at Largest cities of the world page. Such a list does exist, and such a list should occur on wikipedia. I'll make one soon when I have the time. Or someone else can create it. Kingturtle 06:37 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

Also, this page needs references, and dates. What dates do these numbers reflect? Where did these numbers come from? Kingturtle 06:38 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

Thirdly, wouldn't it be useful to number the entries? I think so. Kingturtle 06:51 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

Some of the figures for this page seem wildly off. It would be nice to have some sort of source for these figures. Quite frankly as it now stands it is useless. Mintguy 21:57 9 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I'm revising, and using ranges based on a variety of sources, but it's hopeless to get a solid definition of a metropolitan area. For example, the Tokyo metroplitan area is cited as low as 20 million (National Geographic, 1999) and as high as 35 million (various websites), depending on exactly how far out to surrounding cities you go. This changes the order as well -- by some counts Tokyo is the largest, by some Mexico City is the largest, and so on. A provision method is to find a range of semi-solid claims and take the midpoint for ranking. Results should be up within an hour or so (so if possible please nobody edit for a bit, to avoid tedious edit conflicts). --Delirium 02:48, Aug 24, 2003 (UTC)

Why? The figures used before were based on a common deffinition. If you change them based on a variety of sources, we can't hope to have a list acurately ordered by population. - Efghij 04:33, Aug 24, 2003 (UTC)
But the ones here were clearly wrong in a lot of cases as well. If you can find one reliable source, though, go ahead and use it. The census link in the references of this article is probably the best US source, but I don't know of anything comparable for worldwide populations, and sources vary drastically (for example, Khartoum ranges from "not on the top 100" (i.e. less than 2.5 million) to over 6 million, depending on who you consult. --Delirium 05:53, Aug 24, 2003 (UTC)

The Times World Atlas numbers seem pretty acurate (although limited in their deffinition of "Metro Area"). Is there any reason we can't use them? - Efghij 17:42, Aug 24, 2003 (UTC)

I updated the numbers and cities to Demographia's numbers. In addition, I am putting 50 more urban areas that Demographia has listed. WhisperToMe 21:49, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The two sources referenced are from the United States. Can we have these numbers confirmed or augmented by using a non-U.S. source? Kingturtle 22:00, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)

How about http://www.megacities.uni-koeln.de. That appears to be a current research page based in Europe, for the International Geographical Union. -- Anon, 11:40, 4 March 2004

The list is completely flawed. A few example: - population of Chinese cities is completely overestimated - London 13 million people?!! That must include the whole of South East England. The figure is usually estimated by decent geographers at around 8 million. 13 million is just propaganda. Was the article written by an English person? - Moscow 15 million people?!!!!! This is even more absurd. Maybe using Soviet-hyped data? Real figure is more around 10 million

I understand the problem is to have a clear definition of what is a metropolitan area. If data from each national statistics institute are to be used, then the list will be meaningless, since each country have their own definition of what a metropolitan area is. The only criteria that is valid for geographers and that is recognized internationally (including the UN) is that of the "urban area". An urban area includes all the urbanized area around a city center where houses are not separated from each other by more than 200 meters. That's the officially accepted international definition. If town x is a satellite town of urban area y but is separated by, say, 1 mile of agricultural land from urban area y, then town x is not part of urban area y. If the closest house from town x is within 200 meters from the furthest suburb of urban area y, then town x is considered part of urban area y. This is a plain and simple criteria. The notion of "200 meters" can be debated, but so far it is the criteria that is recognized and used.

Now, if you want to find the exact data for all the urban areas of the world according to the 200 meters criteria, there's a research group at the University of Avignon in France which have spent the last 20 years compiling statistics data from all around the world to produce an harmonized list of all the urbanized areas of the world above 10,000 inhabitants. The list is harmonized for the year 2000, using the 200 meters criteria. They haven't trusted local governments figures, maps and administrative lines. They have used satellite pictures to determine where exactly are the limits of each urban area, and they have compiled the number of inhabitants within these limits. This is a remarquable work, but unfortunately only few data are online (mainly Western European countries). Maybe if we ask them they will allow us to publish a list of the major urban areas of the world ranked by population. Here is a link to the website for those interested: http://www.geo.univ-avignon.fr/Site%20Avignon/pages/labo/index%20geopolis.html Hardouin 00:20, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Since such a list doesn't exist in the public domain.... err.... we can't use it.
I have problems with the "200 meters" rule. In the UK (and possibly in other countries) zoning laws create artificial gaps between the main city and its satellites, that, given no planning legislation, would not exist. Also, 200 metres is narrower than rivers, parks, railroad yards and stations, highways, etc.
Exile
Well, talking of public domain, this webpage should not even exist, because data come from statistical offices, and are not public domain. So Wikipedia could not list any statistics, such as GDP, population, etc., which would be rather absurd.
As for the 200 meters rule, well... somehow you need to have a rule, otherwise people would be free to put the limit of the city wherever they please, such as in China where the municipality of Chongqing extends for hundreds of kilometers and include more than 30 million inhabitants! Also, without the 200 meters rule, from Rotterdam to the Swiss border you would have ONE metropolitan area all along the Rhine river, and that would be the most populous urban area in the world. A bit absurd isn't it.
Moreover, roads, railroad yards, rivers are not counted when using the 200 meters rule, so it is in fact 200 meters of either agricultural lands, forests, or badlands. I am not sure whether parks are counted or not.
193.82.16.42 15:59,

Houston 7.95 million??

Everyone (including wikipedia) claims Houston's population at about 5 million. Where in the world is this number coming from?

The U.S. census recorded Houston's Metro Area is 5 million. The source used in this article isn't the U.S. census and defines its metro area differently. :\ WhisperToMe 22:39, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I honestly don't think there is a way to define houston and get that extra 3 million people. I'm pretty sure this is simply an error. strider

From http://www.census.gov/population/estimates/metro-city/0312mfips.txt:

Houston-Baytown-Sugar Land, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area 48015 Austin County, TX 48039 Brazoria County, TX 48071 Chambers County, TX 48157 Fort Bend County, TX 48167 Galveston County, TX 48201 Harris County, TX 48291 Liberty County, TX 48339 Montgomery County, TX 48407 San Jacinto County, TX 48473 Waller County, TX

That's the census bureau's official definition of the Houston metro area. I don't know what the total population of those counties is. RickK 04:58, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)


Actual dates from some cities

  • Madrid, Spain. In 2003: Madrid city: 3,092,759. Madrid metropolitan area: 5,603,285 (98% of Madrid Province's population).
  • Barcelona, Spain. In 2003: Barcelona city: 1,582,738. Barcelona metropolitan area: 4,667,136 (92% of Barcelona Province's population).
  • Paris, France. In 2003: 11,354,000
  • Santiago, Chile. In 2002: 6,061,185
  • Beijing, China. In 2003: 13,820,000
  • Tianjin, China, In 2001: 10,040,000
  • Lagos, Nigeria. In 2000: 13,400,000

Blank space

Why is there so much blank space above the table? RickK 07:15, Nov 7, 2004 (UTC)

Updated Figures

The updated population figures I added are 2005 estimates, most based on 2000 census' and growth rates. The source (http://www.world-gazetteer.com/wg.php?x=1118288079&men=gcis&lng=en&gln=xx&dat=32&srt=pnan&col=aohdq&pt=a&va=x) measures agglomerations, which are based more on a geographic, rather than political data.

You should be aware that the vast majority of countries do not define or calculate metropolitan areas. The figures at World Gazetteer that you have copied in the article have been calculated by the person who created the World Gazetteer website, i.e. he is the one who decided what was the limits of metropolitan areas, therefore these data are not official at all, and great care should be exercized before copying them. I have perused inside the website, and it appears many data are correct (i.e. comparable to other credible sources that I have seen before), but some data appear wrong. For instance, Tokyo 36.5 million, or Rhein-Ruhr 11.8 million appear exagerated. More serious data put Tokyo closer to 30 million, and Rhein-Ruhr closer to 10 million. Hardouin 10:56, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The fact that the term "metropolitan area" is ambiguous complicates the issue. What source would you contend is more reliable in defining the extent of these populations?

There is not one single source that can be reliable and trusted by itself. To my knowledge, there are only three countries that officially define metropolitan areas and provide figures for metropolitan areas (Canada, France, and the US). Other countries define urban areas only (e.g.: UK, Switzerland). Urban areas are smaller than metropolitan areas. Finally, the vast majority of countries define neither metropolitan areas, nor urban areas. So apart from Canada, France, and the US, where we can safely use official data by national statistics offices, for the rest of the world the only thing we can do is check several independent sources, and list the figures that sound more credible/come most often in various sources. Hardouin 29 June 2005 20:00 (UTC)

São Paulo metropolitan area

Hi. I'm not sure what the source is for the present data regarding the city of São Paulo, Brazil and its metropolitan area. I had a feeling it was wrong though. I've just conducted a search in the Brazilian Google, and have found multiple sources, some of them governmental, that contradict this list. First, the Greater São Paulo area (metropolitan area) officially comprises 38 municipalities (=counties), and its population is calculated in approximately 35 million (I can try to find the exact number), which would rank it in second (to Tokyo, Japan) in terms of population. Regards, Redux 6 July 2005 20:39 (UTC)

It took me forever, but I finally found a reliable, government source. It's from the Brazilian National Bank for Development (commonly abbreviated BNDES). According to the data in the study I found, which is from 2004 (pretty recent), the population is actually 18.5 million, and the area does include 39 municipalities. Here is the study. This is a pdf document, and it's in Portuguese, but look for page 5; in there, the second pip lists the number of municipalities (39 "municípios" = 39 municipalities), and the third pip gives the population ("18,5 milhões de hab. (aprox. 10%...)" = 18.5 million inhabitants (approximatelly 10%...)"). I hope it helps. Regards, Redux 6 July 2005 21:27 (UTC)

Shanghai

The Shanghai-Suzhou-Changzhou-Wuxi area can be effectively deemed as one metropolitan area.

No. In fact the Shanghai metro area is even smaller than the listed value which includes all of Shanghai Municipality. DirectorStratton 15:32, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

What about Shenzhen-Guangzhou-Zhuhai (pearl river delta) which boasts about 40.8 million people Pearl_River_Delta#Emergence_of_the_economy Plus Shenzhen should be up on the list somewhere with about 12.5 million inhabitants and labourers

Article biased and non-standard

This article uses a variety of standards to determine population figures, none of which are widely recognised. It may be forever impossible to fix this article (short of a UN list I suppose), but regardless the neutrality tag should stay put. DirectorStratton 15:32, 20 September 2005 (UTC) Many of the populations are uncited and/or falsified. DirectorStratton 15:42, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Population of Metro Manila

Except for a few weeks where I spent vacation outside Metro Manila, I have spent my entire life in Metro Manila - Quezon City to be more exact.

I believe the estimate of 16 Million for Metro Manila is too high.

The highest estimate of Metro Manila population that I have heard of is 12 Million. At this point, people refer to it as Mega Manila which supposedly include the southern most towns/cities of Bulacan, northern most towns/cities of Laguna and Cavite, and the western most towns/cities of Rizal Province. Mega Manila is by no means an official political term nor does it have a specific border.

Even the total that you have in the article of Metro Manila is only 9.953 Million only. This, I believe is accurate.

Please note that I havent tried to correct the figures in your article.

Homer de los Santos homerds@pacific.net.ph

As I put in the header, virtually all the population figures in this article are wrong. Thanks for the info, I went to the Ph. National Statistics and you're right. DirectorStratton 18:31, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

The officially defined National Capital Region composed of 17 cities/municipalities had a population of ~10 million in 2000. However, the actual metropolitan area is larger than this area. The 16+ million figure in 2000 includes cities/municipalities in adjacent provinces (Bulacan, Rizal, Laguna, Cavite) that are included in the urbanized area of Metro Manila.

UN statistics

So it turns out there are UN statistics on urban agglomerations. I'll try to implement these soon. DirectorStratton 20:30, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm requesting copyright advisement on this set of statistics. I know that US Census results are public domain: what about UN studies? Specfically I want to copy figures from this report: [1] Index Page to the general report Thank you to whoever can help me on this. DirectorStratton 22:41, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Moscow

By the way. In Moscow there are some 10,407,000 citizens. In Moscow Region there are living 6,618,538 people outside the city itself, which in sum constitutes 17,025,538 while the page List_of_metropolitan_areas_by_population describes the entire population of the Moscow metropolitan area as 14,440,000 :-\--Nixer 19:30, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Moscow's official population is around 10 mil but it's well known that it has a very large number of undocumented inhabitants, due to Moscow's complex registration bureaucracy. I am unaware of a reliable real estimate but it is certainly larger than 10 million--13 or 14 might be right. johnsemlak 6:55, 21 December 2005

Toronto

I do not find it reasonable to include Niagara Falls as part of Toronto. There is a small break in the conurbation on both sides of Saint Catherines. If, however, Niagara Falls is considered part of Toronto, then so obviously is Buffalo because the region between Niagara Falls and Buffalo is completely urban on the American side. The population given is therefore either too large or too small.

I think it's safe to eliminate Niagara Falls as well, although it doesn't change things much to be honest. A more interesting one is Hamilton, which adds about a million to the Toronto figure. Although it is true that the settlement is now largely continuous (only recently though), I doubt anyone in Hamilton would consider themselves part of Toronto. However even if you eliminate those bits, Toronto is still about 4.6 million, so it's not a huge change. Maury 15:19, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
Actually, the whole Golden Horseshoe can be considered, one way or another, to be part of the wide-area metro of Toronto. There is a very small gap between St. Catharines and Niagara Falls, but the gap is no larger than the gap between Oakville and Burlington, or Aurora and Newmarket. Toronto is widely considered to be North America's fifth largest metropolitan area, so ranking it lower than Phillidelphia doesn't make much sense, especially when the closest thing to a Canadian equivilent of a CMSA pegs Toronto at 8 million people. Snickerdo 09:22, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

New Source Dispute

My opinion that we should restore City Population figures. Unfortunately, UN came unreliable source for urban area population. That review does not representing real figures. Front page for this article of wikipedia says "these figures include suburban areas immediately surrounding a major city and sometimes multiple major cities which may be close enough together to function essentially as one area.", what become not true with UN figures. UN counted some cities with metropolitan areas, some with agglomeration and some with just city propers that is absurd. Examples is Moscow (if Polaron is right on definition, however it wasn't 10,7 in 2003 within city limits, but much less) and London. CityPopulation figures is more close to reality. Please do not updating the article, before we come to consensus. I'm awating for replys. Elk Salmon 19:34MSK, 19 October 2005
I have no problem with putting city population.de figures as long as there are definitions (and land areas) given for each metropolitan area. The citypopulation site does not indicate the boundaries of each area while the UN compilation does. I agree that the UN uses different types of definitions for different countries so they are not directly comparable. Polaron 15:57, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Making a population survey of cities that is 100% consistent would be amazingly hard, and downright impossible for some countries (not all countries take stock of the same things in their Census). The UN Survey is both public domain and explains the sources well. Please also see the debate below. DirectorStratton 15:11, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I found this article [2] while looking for information on some of these urban areas. It looks like a paper on metropolitan area definitions and why the numbers vary so much across different lists. It's very informative and those interested in making this list more reliable should read it. One of the authors, Richard Forstall, attempted to make a standardised definition of metro areas and has compiled his own list (only the Top 20 are in the paper). I've been looking for more information on his definitions but can't seem to find them online. Polaron 17:59, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

IS THIS JUST A SELF-RANKED FIGURES OUT OF RAW DATA FROM THE 2003 UN STUDY?

THE STUDY WASNT INTENDED TO DEFINED OR ASSIGNED A STANDARDISED METROPOLITAN AREAS IN THE WORLD. THE STUDY IS SIMPLY EXPLAINING THE TRENDS AND PROSPECTIVE DEVELOPMENT OF URBAN AREA IN THE WORLD.

NEVERTHELESS THAT IS WHY MANY GROUPINGS OR THE "AGGLOMERATION" OF THE U.N. ARE QUITE DEBATABLE ON THE DEFENING OF WHAT ARE THE METROPOLITAN AREAS IN THE WORLD OF TODAY. BEC THEY CANNOT SIMPLY STANDARDIZE SUCH THINGS, IT CAN ONLY BE DONE IN A LOCAL LEVEL.

ONE EXAMPLE IS THE SAN FRANCISCO-SAN JOSE AREA WAS SPLIT INTO TWO IN THE STUDY.

SAN JOSE AND SAN FRANCISCO WERE 2 SEPERATE METRO AREAS BACK THEN BUT THROUGH THE YEARS THE TWO URBANISED AREAS HAVE ALREADY MERGED PHYSICALLY AND CREATED A WHOLE NEW BIGGER AGGLOMERATION.

SINCE THE STUDY IS FOR ON HISTORICAL COMPARISON OF METRO AREA IT WOULD BE HARD TO COMPARE 2 SEPERATE METROS BACK THEN (LIKE SF & SJ) AND COMPARE IT TO THIER RECENT COMBINED STATISTICAL DATA OF TODAY. THAT IS WHY THE U.N. KEPT THEM SEPERATE ON THE STUDY.

THIS CASE IS ALSO TRUE TO MANY MORE METRO AREAS AROUND THE WORLD SOME EXAMPLE ALSO INCLUDE D.C., BOSTON, DALLAS, SEOUL, MOSCOW, KUALA LUMPUR, TAIPEI, ETC. ETC. WHICH HAS EXPERIENCED Conurbation TRHOUGH THE YEARS.

THAT IS WHY WE SHOULD USE A MUCH COMPREHENSIVE LIST THAT ACTUALLY FOLLOWS THE STANDARDS OF EACH LOCAL NATION ON WHICH A METRO AREA BELONGS TO.

WE SHOULD USE THE "Citypopulation.de: The Principal Agglomerations of the World" WHICH LOOK MORE PROFFESIONALLY MADE AND MOST OF ALL UPDATED FOR 2005. ITS VERY RELIABLE WEBSITE USING DIFFERENT SOURCES FROM EACH INDIVIDUAL LOCAL NATION. Edits by 71.107.251.137 around 07:50, October 15, 2005

I don't respond to anons writing in all caps. DirectorStratton 13:36, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

The "Citypopulation.de:" source is a Public Domain so it can be use as long you cite the source. Again I want you to know that the 2003 UN figures has a lot of problems in what we are representing here. first it is already out dated, secondly I already adressed this that many of the metropolitan areas are fragmented bec. it was only use for hitorical comparison. Third you should not rank them all by yourself beccause it can cause multiple errors.

2005 "Citypopulation.de:" source, Im not saying it is perfectly accurate but its certainly reflects the closest of defining each metropolitan areas around the world today. It was proffesionally made and they used reliable sources from each individual country to create the rankings.

P.S. your reply to my first comment seems like childish. Just because Im "annonymous", that Im not important enough to be responded to. You seem like belittling people here I hope the editors would notice this. Edits by 71.107.251.137

Maybe you're not aware, but writing in all caps is typically used only by vandals, trolls, "drive-by insulters" and other miscreants. Being an anon further increases that likelihood. Why not register an account? As for citypopulation.de, it is not public domain. Every page says "Copyright Thomas Brinkoff"; although the Agglomerations page does allow distribution with citation, we can only use works if they are placed in the public domain or are licensed under the GFDL (eg the article must say that it is placed in the public domain). Also, I haven't found any information as to the methodology used in the rankings anywhere on the website, which makes it hard to determine neutrality. Although there are problems with the UN report as you mention, it satisfies some important conditions:

  • Is (or attempts to be) objective and neutral in classification
  • Comes from a well known and regarded agency
  • Is public domain

Yes, generating a self-ranking can produce errors, but that's why anyone can edit Wikipedia. If someone feels that the page has an error, they can correct it. That isn't an argument for not incorporating a set of data. DirectorStratton 20:53, 15 October 2005 (UTC)


First of all the UN study was a 2003 Data and not 2005 as your own article claims. it was published in 2004 or 2005 but the figures are all from 2003 figures. beyond this are just propectives.

But that was not really the point here

The thing is the problem is not on the UN study itself but its on your own self imposed methodology.

I already brought up this--- many Metropolitan Areas was misrepresented in the study. they didnt actually intetionally misrepresent them bec. The study wasnt INTENDED TO DEFINED OR ASSIGNED A STANDARDISED METROPOLITAN AREAS IN THE WORLD. THE STUDY IS SIMPLY EXPLAINING THE TRENDS AND PROSPECTIVE DEVELOPMENT/GROWTH OF URBAN AREA IN THE WORLD.

Let me give you an example again Seoul should have been a lot higher on the rank so as San Francisco so as Tapei and Washinston DC. because these metro has already merged with another metro. I already explained this so I wont do it again.

You said you "haven't found any information as to the methodology used in the rankings anywhere on the website, which makes it hard to determine neutrality."

On the overview section of the website its sates clearly

"If you require explanations concerning the data, the abbreviations or the usage of the interactive maps, please click on Info. There exists also a page showing answers to frequently asked questions. Under Refs, you will find links to other web sites and the references."

consider this:

The website Uses "MULTIPLE RELIABLE SOURCES" from Each Individual nation and used a proffesional methodology by proffesional people. So it is very objective, neutral and stadardise.

vs.

You only using outdated raw data from a single source that you self ranked.

Let me give you an anaolgy. If we are buying a Television what would you rather buy a "complete and assembled one" or "raw materials of TV (bits and parts)" that you have to assemble from scratch?

You are doing the start from the scartch thing, you are really not sure what you are doing making it prone to error. Because of this expect a massive amount of editing, complaints and it a lot of dispute. Or would we rather have use a "complete product" to avoid many objection.

Since the Agglomerations page does allow distribution with citation why not just use it?

I uderstand you put some work on this but be reasonable. You even admitted that you have not found the Morroco or North Korea figures. so where did you find them eventually? from other sources? If it is I guess the "netrality" and "objectivity" of your work is really questinable

I STRONGLY suggest that you do not continue what you have been doing and just use the more updated complete figures, because I know many people will just challenge you. Edits by 71.107.251.137

Many arguments you have made (UN survey as estimate, not a definition) are apparent filibusters, as the arguments apply equal to cp.de or any other survey.

I find the cp methodolgy rather vague with only one paragraph of explanation:

Official censuses and estimations are mostly the basis of the population figures presented on this web site; the definition of agglomerations is sometimes based on unofficial or own estimates. Please note that the data of such statistics are all of varying, and some of suspect accuracy. There are several reasons: the varying relevance and accuracy of the base data, the poor comparability of the definitions of agglomerations, errors in the projections and so on.

The UN report is very specific, starting on page 123 of the report, with over 40 pages of references and information on the difficulties and flaws with specific data in the report.

Again, cp.de is not public domain so it can't be used. Do you run this site? If so, I can help you make it compatible with US public domain or the GFDL.

Also, I could not find the flag templates for Morocco and North Korea; the statistics are per the UN report. DirectorStratton 23:40, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

The references for the cited UN report indicate that different types of areas are being reported for the different countries. In the Top 10, for example, Tokyo, Mexico City and Sao Paolo (and possibly Buenos Aires) are official metropolitan areas defined by the countries themselves. [[Jakarta[[, New York City, and the three big cities of India are all defined as the urbanised area (typically smaller than the metro area). Shanghai, on the other hand is defined as the municipality (province) of Shanghai which includes a large area of primarily rural counties under the administration of the Shanghai local government. The UN relies on official statistics that each country compiles, which are not always comparable across different countries. What if we put the areas that these populations refer to so that people get an idea of how big a given area is? This makes this list a little more useful for comparisons across different countries. (68.85.39.28)

On a more thorough reading, the UN report cited is basically tracking population growth in urban areas so if this list is used, the article title should probably be changed to "list of urban agglomerations". Metropolitan areas typically include suburban and sometimes rural areas that are economically tied to the core city. (68.85.39.28)


UN estimates for Moscow based on Moscow Administration's estimates for late 90's that based on census of 1989. Census of 2002 showed that calculation was wrong on 1,5mln. According to 2002 census within city limits live 10,4mln (settled population), not 8,9mln as it was supposed before. Elk Salmon 17:34MSK, 19 October 2005

San Francisco Metro Area

You list the SF Bay Area here as 3,342,000 but in your link to the SF Bay Area you say it's home to over 7 million.

Washington-Baltimore Metro Area

The Washington-Baltimore Consolidated Metropolitan Area (aka the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area) is listed innaccurately here as having only 3.9 million people. According to the US Census Bureau, the 2000 census gives a population of 7.6 million, with some current estimates putting it just above 8 million people, as it is the fourth largest metropolitan area in the United States. In fact, even by itself the Washington Metropolitan Area is some 4.8 million people, well above the quoted figure. Edit by 138.88.255.138

The UN Survey uses the Washington Metropolitan Division figure for Washington. In general, the UN Survey uses smaller population figures than many people might be used to, but is consistent in application. DirectorStratton

To be more accurate, the UN report uses urbanized areas for all US cities. It does not use metropolitan statistical areas or metropolitan divisions. There are lists and maps of US urbanized areas. [3]


HOLA

SOY UN WIKIPEDISTA DE Argentina, Y MODIFIQUE LA POBLACION DE "Buenos Aires" QUE NO ES 13.700.000 SINO DE 11.460.575 SEGUN EL CENSO DEL INDEC. GRACIAS.

Please make sure that the area you are referring to is the same as the one the UN report is referring to. I believe the UN report actually refers to the metropolitan area. I won't revert the figures until a concensus on what reference to use is reached. Polaron 23:58, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

I'll revert it--this user probably doesn't speak English (if you do please make your comments in English!) and therefore hasn't read any of the debate that is going on currently. I can't stand uniformed drive=by editing. DirectorStratton 22:50, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I am not the user who wrote that but I speak Spanish, let me translate what he says: Population of the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires, according to the last national official Argentine census is 11,460,575. He IS referring to the metro area, since the city of Buenos Aires proper (called capital federal) has a population of less than three million.
This highlights one of the problems compiling this list has. From what I could find online and in English, the 11.46 million figure is probably the 2001 census of the administrative area known as Gran Buenos Aires. The actual (functional) metropolitan area may be somewhat larger. The 13.35 million figure seems to be more in line with the definitions used by both citypopulation.de and world-gazeteer.com. There are many ways of defining these areas and different countries probably have different preferences. This is why I believe it is necessary to put area definitions for each figure. Polaron 22:12, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Phoenix

I'm questioning Phoenix to be on that list of metropolitan areas. Phoenix metropolitan area includes approximately 37 000 sq km, or almost the size of Switzerland or Denmark. It must be some sort of a record in size when it comes to define a metropolitan area or region. --Bobowskij 00:41, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

The article says 2070 sq km which makes sense. It may be hard to see Phoenix on the list, but keep in mind that it has grown 45% or more in the last ten years--not the Phoenix I remember as a kid, and that wasn't so long ago. DirectorStratton 02:43, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I stand corrected. But, what is considered as the Phoenix metropolitan area, is still huge and covers the size of a smaller country. I wasn't aware of that most of the population is concentrated around the same spot. I thought the population was more scattered.--Bobowskij 00:35, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

New York City

Aite, i'm gonna try a factual analysis of the population of New York City. First, my definition of the metro area: [4] See that nice maroon area near NYC? I'm gonna count all the maroon areas directly contiguous to the 5 NYC borroughs as part of the NYC metro area, as well as bordering purple and light blue ones (I am considering any county with a population density greater than 100 persons / square mile to be urban). This has one big drawback: that little thing called Philadelphia. So I will be using the following Pennslyvania counties as the logical border between NYC and Philly:
Northampton
Carbon
Luzenre


Considering this, the following counties are part of the NYC Metro Area, as well as their 2004 census predicted population: New York
Richmond (Statan Island) 463,314
Kings (Brooklyn) 2,475,290
Queens 2,237,216
New York (Manhattan) 1,562,723
Bronx 1,365,536
Nassau 1,339,641
Suffolk 1,475,488
Rockland 293,626
Westchester 942,444
Putnam 100,570
Orange 370,352
Dutchess 293,395
Ulster 181,779
Sullivan 76,110


Pennsylvania
Pike 54,117
Monroe 158,925
Wayne 49,561
Lackawanna 209,93
2 Carbon 61,194
Luzerne 313,431
Northampton 282,554
Wyoming 28,168


New Jersey
Bergen 902,998
Hudson 606,240
Passaic 500,427
Essex 796,684
Union 531,957
Middlesex 785,095
Morris 488,173
Sussex 152,218
Somerset 316,750
Hunterdon 606,240
Warren 110,018
Monmouth 636,298
Mercer 365,271
Ocean 553,251
Burlington 449,685


Conneticuit
Farfield 903,291
New Haven 845,694
Litchfield 189,246
Middlesex 162,295


Massachutsus
Berkshire 132,486


Total Metro Area NYC Population:
24,369,683

So yeah... I guess i'll go post this to the main page now, since i just spent 3 hours compiling that number o.O

You seem to be using a much more generous definition of urban areas than the US Census. The previous value *is* the official census figure (projected from the 2000 census using a linear model of the growth from 1990-2000). Please see here. We should use sources that are verifiable, whose methodology is laid out, and which is accepted as authoritative by most people. Polaron 02:13, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, what is a metropolitan area? Most of the cities on this list are not in the US, and their populations cannot be determined by the US census. Therefore, we must apply a unique wikipedia methodology for determining their population, and apply it uniformly, so that we are not comparing apples and oranges. I believe thatmy methodology is pretty clearly laid out, that my sources are verifiable (county pops from the census) and that my population can hence be considered authoritative. Adam (http://www.ifobos.com) 02:18, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Applying a single standard for the entire world will not necessarily lead to informative results. I hope you realize that your 100 per square mile (~40 per square kilometer) criterion would lead to ridiculous results when applied to Asian urban areas where rural areas can have more than 1000 inhabitants per square kilometer. I think that this criterion would even cause several urban areas of mainland Western Europe to merge. I'm sure other people here will agree that your particular definition is not universally applicable.
I agree about not letting urban areas merge -- that's why i cut off NYC half way thru Pennsylvania. But we certainly do need to be able to do our own research if wikipedia is going to be more than just a consollidation of other poeple's information -- we are allowed to make our own analysis. I certainly agree that my definition isn't very good -- it was just sort of me going on a map and saying which colors are "urban" and which aren't, but I still think that we need a better way of determining a metropolitan area than just going with what the people before us said. I do believe, however, that for NYC in particular, my method works, because I am reasonably knowledgable about New York City, and I believe that I have drawn an accurate metropolitan area. I am not saying my definition of a metro area is correct -- I know it isn't -- I am just saying that we need to be able to make our own definition, apply it, and post the results -- to organize our research in new and useful ways.
Although Wikipedia can do its own analysis, it is a policy that we do not use Wikipedia to publish our own original research. That's why I introduced the UN standard rather than attempting to calculate the figures myself. Also, using your definition of urban area would make Cleveland merge with Akron, Canton, and Youngstown, which is silly if you are familiar with the area at all. DirectorStratton 03:03, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Updated projections?

The numbers for some US cities, Vietnamese cities, and St. Petersburg seem to be different from the numbers in the article. I don't know if new projections were made for these cities. I'll try and update the numbers later when I have time. (Polaron)

I just checked more carefully and the differences are either due to using the 2000 numbers for US and Vietnamese cities, the 2010 numbers for Rhein-Ruhr North, and possibly typos fro Dhaka and St. Petersburg. Polaron 20:53, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
I tried to use the 2005 statistics from the report, apologies if I have made mistakes. Also great job with the article. DirectorStratton 06:56, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Delirium

The population of the Moscow itself is more than 12 million, not to say metropolitan area.--Nixer 00:15, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

That's not what the link you provide says! - Randwicked 06:22, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Johannesburg

The city is currently listed as having a population of 3.2 million, based on the 2001 census. This is correct, but the figure only applies to the City of Johannesburg Municipality, and does not include the entire metropolitan area.

If one looks at the urban morphology of the city, it is important to compare apples with apples. Greater New York includes the five boroughs, parts of Connecticut, Northern New Jersey and Long Island, with a population of around 22 million. Few people dispute this, and the area is classified as a CMSA (consolidated metropolitan statistical area).

In the case of Johannesburg, the origins of the city and the growth of the urban area must be considered. The city was officially established in 1886, after the discovery of gold. All along the gold-bearing reef, small settlements began to develop, such as Germiston and Boksburg on the East Rand and Roodepoort on the West Rand. The centre of activity remained the area around Johannesburg, which today comprises the CBD. Thus, a hundred years ago, there was some separation between the small towns of the Witwatersrand and the urban core around Johannesburg. Quickly, as the towns and Jo'burg grew, the whole area became one contiguous built-up area known as the Witwatersrand ("ridge of white waters" in English). "East Rand" and "West Rand" were short for the eastern and western side of the Witwatersrand respectively.

As far back as the early 1890s, Johannesburg and its surrounding towns were always regarded as a single metropolitan entity, although separated by municipality for administrative purposes later on. It was similar to Los Angeles, once described as "19 suburbs in search of a city." Three specific pieces of evidence to support this: 1)Map books of Jo'burg always included the whole Witwatersrand. 2)The dialling code for the whole area is (011). 3)The then Jan Smuts Airport was built on the East Rand. Its airport code has always been JNB (for Johannesburg). Even Newark (EWR) is regarded as an airport that serves New York. Furthermore, the case study of the South African city is very interesting: the urban form is unlike any in the world, either developed (Western) world or developing (Third) world. Because of Apartheid, people were separated according to race, and municipal areas drawn up along racial lines, to enforce racial separation. For example, Soweto was always included in the Jo'burg municipal area, but had its own municipal offices and city council. Alexandra was always separated from Sandton, which in itself is an interesting case study: it was formed in 1969 because Jo'burg was growing too big to the north. A separate municipality was established for the "mink and manure belt," the rich, upper class Whites who then were very separated from their Black counterparts. Following the demise of the Group Areas Act and the decision to end Apartheid, the contrived separation of race was addressed and municipal areas drawn up along racial lines were scrapped. New interim urban structures were created, which led to a hue and outcry by the mostly privileged White population. The proposal was that instead of having large urban areas with separate municipalities, large single regions called "unicities" should be created. This was done for Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria. In the case of Port Elizabeth, the areas of Uitenhage and Despatch were included, because they were deemed to be functionally linked to Port Elizabeth.

In the case of Jo'burg, however, the vast urban area was deemed too big for a single municipality (rendering services such as water, electricity and garbage removal would have been too difficult a function for one city), so the government decided to split the area in two: Johannesburg (which now included Soweto and Roodepoort, always originally part of the West Rand), and Ekurhuleni (all the separate municipalities of the East Rand were merged into one). Other parts of the West Rand became Mogale City. But once again, the separation is purely administrative. The two remain functionally and economically linked. For example, Rand McNally suggests that metropolitan areas are defined "irrespective of administrative boundaries." Theodore Brinkhoff pegs the Greater Jo'burg population to be around 7.4 million. This seems the most accurate figure, based on projections from the 2001 census of the combined populations of Jo'burg and Ekurhuleni. The two "cities" are so similar, in fact, that the only different between metro police services is the colour of their vehicles (Jo'burg orange, East Rand yellow). Their liveries/markings have exactly the same design.

Thus, ANY listing of Johannesburg's metro population should include both East and West Rand.

The case for Johannesburg and Pretoria is equally interesting: are these two cities one and the same? Here, evidence would suggest they are not: Pretoria founded 1855, Jo'burg 1886; different area dialling codes (012/011); separate universities; very different cultures (Pretoria conservative, Jo'burg radical); different languages (Pretoria Tswana and Afrikaans, Jo'burg Zulu and English); different functions (Pretoria sedate and government-orientated; Jo'burg fast-paced and finance-orientated). However, the Gauteng government has noticed how much the two cities are becoming more interdependent, and are now looking at the area as a single, globally competitive city region. Massive increased traffic between the two is an example: many people live in Pretoria, but work in Jo'burg, particularly in the finance and IT sectors. Another example is radio stations: 94.7 Highveld used to broadcast only to Greater Jo'burg and the Vaal; 94.2 Jacaranda used to broadcast only to Pretoria, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and the North West. Now they both broadcast in both cities. One could argue, therefore, that the two cities are becoming a single megalopolitan area.

All the numbers in the current list are from the UN World Urbanization Prospects report. I don't know the reasons for the specific definitions chosen by the UN. My guess is that they prefer to use a single official census value for each urban area if possible, making compilation easier.
This separation of areas that are often unified was also done for Osaka-Kobe + Kyoto, San Francisco + San Jose, and Washington + Baltimore. I am not sure what the best way to address issues such as this is. We could add up the figures for "separate but should be combined" urban areas and list that. Or we could add footnotes indicating that the actual integrated urban entity is larger than what is listed and put the relevant figure in the footnote.
For reference, citypopulation.de adds up the muncipalities of Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and West Rand district to get the Johannesburg agglomeration figure; world-gazeteer.com is similar but excludes Merafong municipality in West Rand resulting in a slightly lower figure. Polaron 18:33, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your efforts. I'm sure this is not the easiest topic in the world to be impartial about, as there is so much prestige attached to the largest city or the capital of a country, and I'm sure people give you tons of grief about it. Without giving you more unnecessary flak, it is surprising that the UN only includes the figures for the Johannesburg Municipality. It was the UN that suggested Johannesburg as being one of the world's future megacities. In the case of Osaka-Kobe & Kyoto, and Washington & Baltimore, the only way to accurately and fairly compare these cities to the Johannesburg Region would be to include Pretoria, i.e. if an urban agglomeration was listed as Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto and Washington-Baltimore, then the equivalent would be Johannesburg-Pretoria. Similarly, if Johannesburg's figure is listed as 3.2 million (municipal area only), then the concomitant figure for New York should be about 7-8 million (the five boroughs only). At the moment, the list includes ALL of Greater New York but only about half of Greater Johannesburg. Here's a cheesy example: it's like taking a bag of oranges and weighing them: in the case of New York/Tokyo/Seoul/Sao Paulo, you weigh the whole bag and charge people for the whole bag. But in the case of Johannebsurg, you first take out half the oranges, weigh the bag but still charge them for a full bag of oranges, and everybody just accepts it as standard practice. People get a false impression of Johannesburg's size. At the moment you have the city listed as 90th on your list - smaller than Sydney, for example. Both Demographia and citypopulation.de rank it as considerably larger than Sydney, or around 40th in the world. I conclude therefore, that the UN is wrong. So forgive me for sounding like a Third World orphan with a chip on my shoulder, but it's easy for the UN to sit in its ivory tower in New York and dream up figures about far-flung places thousands of miles away.

I agree with you that the UN numbers are not always the most appropriate for many metro areas. However, most of us here are probably not qualified or authoritative enough to apply standards for one country to a different country. It would be extremely difficult to come up with a single standard applicable to all areas. What the UN does is use a single tabulated figure published by the national statistics office of each country that is closest to the metro area definition. If the national statistics office does not tabulate metropolitan areas, then the UN uses another definition. I guess, we could just add figures from the national statistics office up, but then what is the justification for choosing which municipalities to include and exclude? Johannesburg is probably similar to the case of Seoul where only the city proper is included and the satellite towns/cities are not. The reason is probably similar. In the case of New York, Tokyo, Sao Paolo, and Sydney, their respective national statistics offices do tabulate metropolitan areas, which the UN uses. Actually, in the case of New York, it is the urbanized area figure (smaller than the census metropolitan area) that is used. If we start changing numbers/definitions based on definitions from a non-authoritative source, we'll be opening the doors for other users to just keep on inflating the numbers by including more and more surrounding municipalities or citing sources other than the national statistics offices. I am open to using one of the other lists linked to in the article as long as we can define precisely how the numbers were obtained and what areas where included. Polaron 17:57, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you again. I appreciate your lengthy explanation and your time. I think I've made my point: as long as Wikipedia readers/users know that the figure for Johannesburg is grossly inaccurate, as it does not incude the metro area, I'm satisfied. As such, I would advise people to refer to citypopulation.de for a more comprehensive figure.

Having lived in both Johannesburg and Washington DC I must agree with Polaron. The area currently listed in the article refers to the old municipal area of Johannesburg and not to Greater Johannesburg. If DC excludes only Baltimore, then it would be best to compare the Johannesburg in the current table with the area of DC within the beltway,. i.e. excluding all of suburban Maryland and Virginia. The two cities are much alike, with parallels in Baltimore/Pretoria, and Bethesda/Sandton.--Suidafrikaan 09:54, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Lima-Callao Metropolitan Area metro area 200,300 less than city???

Lima Population: 8,380,300 2004 Callao Population: 824,329 2005 Total Poulation: 9,204,629

8,180,000 is not even the poulation of the city by itself. Where does this number come from?

It looks like you are including the entire Department of Lima (7,880,000 estimate in 2003 in an area of 34,800 sq. km) in your figure. The officially designated (census) metropolitan area (Lima Metropolitana) includes only the provinces of Lima (7,113,000 estimate in 2003) and Callao (800,000 estimate in 2003). Polaron 05:00, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
Here are official INEI estimates for 2005 for reference:
Departamento de Lima 8,143,950
Provincia de Lima 7,363,069
Ciudad de Lima 348,461 (2003 estimate -- no 2005 official figure yet)
Provincia Constitutional del Callao 824,329
The UN report uses official census figures so I hope this clears up where the figure comes from. Polaron 05:38, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

This concept should die

This list is a joke. The New York figure isn't comparable with LA, let alone London, and goodness only knows what the complications are for most of the others. People who see this article see the warning (though they might not take it in) but in other articles the rankings are quoted as "facts" which is hopelessly misleading and inappropriate. Rhollenton 21:04, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree this article is a joke, there is simply no way that London's *METRO* area is only 7 million... it's more like 11 million - and if you take the definition by the Greater London Assembly which includes surrounding counties in the commuter belt then it's actually 18 million. This article is grossly inaccurate!

Missing Cities

Anybody else notice places that are just blatantly missing? The Seattle, WA metro area has a population of near 4 million, and isn't anywhere on the list.

There are some small gaps that are slightly rural(like May Valley) but are developing fast. But there is heavy suburban housing beyond those gaps. The far eastern parts sort of spill off into the Cascades. Seattle is hard to define.

San Francisco Metro Area

Why would someone seperate San Jose to the San Francisco Bay Area?

As far as I'm concern they are both connected physically (there is an unbroken string of urbanized area between them) and mentally (people who lives here, including me, consider the place as part of one metropolitan area which is the "Bay Area")

  • The US Census Bureau itself separates the areas. There are separate urban areas and metropolitan statistical areas but are combined only in the combined statistical area. The UN just follows what the census office of each country does. Is there a more authoritative source for metropolitan area desginations in the US?

So why not just use the "Combined Statistical Area" of San Francisco and San Jose since it is also officially recognized by US Census Bereau? It is far more accurate representation of what we called the Metropolitan Area here.

Keep in mind just because the Census calls it "Metropolitan Statistical Area" it does not necessarily means it is THE "Metropolitan Area" which was described in this encyclopedia.

hence, it is called metropolitan STATISTICAL area and not simply "Metropolitan Area" "Metropolitan Statistical Area" is different from the term "Metropolitan Area" we refering here.

As far as Im concern the "combined statistical area" is just as good of a "metropolitan area desginations" as the "metropolitan statistical area" is

Some if not many of those "Combined Statitistical Areas" far better reflects those what we called "Metropolitan Area" an example is the Bay Area. Of course this only applies to the US.

just my two cents.

  • I agree that the Combined Statistical Area is a better representation for some US areas. But this is not true for all areas. Boston, for example, seems overly large if one uses the CSA. But Seattle seems like it should have CSA ratings because from Everett down to Olympia is almost packed in solid. So many people work in the suburbs. There are car dealerships everywhere in the suburbs. They don't really reley on the central city(Seattle) very much. But it is still one big one that usually gets off the map 'cause they divide the metro area up into smaller sections. There is also an advantage to using a single, authoritative source for all the figures. It makes verification easy. If we start making exceptions to the UN definitions for some areas, other people will probably start using other sources as well, making this list even more problematic since it will have multiple sources that may not be consistent with each other. My opinion is we should use a single source for all figures. The only question is which source to use. Some people are advocating for citypopulation.de. Maybe we can hve some kind of voting to determine which source to use. In the meantime, I'll put a footnote in the San Francisco entry indicating that it is part of a larger metro area. Polaron 14:03, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

This article is full of errors.

Seoul should have been a lot higher.

Why not just use Citypopulation.de: The Principal Agglomerations of the World source?????

  • The argument against this and similar sources is that they are not authoritative. Personally, I think the citypopulation figures are closer to what I think they should be. However, we need to know how the numbers there were added up and what criteria were used to identify which areas to include or not.

If you click on their "reference" page it will give you the links of each individual countriy's OFFICIAL website for their National Statistics.

So the sources they use are far more accurate. to top it all its more up to date!!!

  • The UN report also uses census figures. In fact, it uses them exclusively for the most part. The numbers posted are also projections for 2005 based on past census figures. UN figures are not less accurate and less up to date. It is the relevancy of the areas chosen that may be questionable.

example is the link of the official website of the "Korea National Statistic Office" can be found on this site

which clearly suggest that it has more than 22 Million and its the third largest Metropolitan Area in the World

  • I could not find the figure for the metropolitan area in the English pages of the National Statistics Office. If you can point it out, then that would be very helpful. If we have to add up separate census figures, which ones do we include and why?

This article needs a major face lift.

Cairo statistics need to be updated

In Cairo article it says has "a metropolitan area population of approximately 15.2 million people", so why is it 11 million in this page? I think there is a mistake. Ashs2005 16:50, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

  • One should always be clear in which definitions are associated with which figures. The UN report uses the traditional definition of "Greater Cairo" which includes the city of Cairo, the city of Giza, and a small portion of Al-Qalubiya governorate around the city of Shubra-El-Kheima. This area has about 11 million people. Another (less well-defined) definition includes the governorate of Cairo, most of the governorate of Al-Qalubiya, and the northern portion of the governorate of Al-Jizah. This other definition has a population of 15+ million but includes significant portions of rural area.Polaron 18:01, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes i agree with you, But Cairo is'nt the only mistake. For Example Tehran has big mistake too, many cities have mistakes right now.So we need work this out soon!Wikiwo123 03:02, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

WORTHLESS TO ARGUE!

THERE IS NO WAY TO DEFINE METROPOLITAN AREA. IT'S A VERY ARBITRARY TERM, AND CAN DIFFER DEPENDING ON WHO SAYS SO.


The metro area for measuring the city population is not standardised, one city is measured on official muncipality area, another one is measure on urban area. For example if Caracas was measured on urban area, the population would be around 6 million people not 3 million.

Randstad Area, The Netherlands

I'd like to make an argument to include the well-known Randstad metropolitan area in The Netherlands. It has a reported population from 6.6M up to 7.1M, depending on whether to include surrounding areas or not. Have a look at Randstad or externally this (including a pdf: here) or this. I'd say sufficient sources to put the Randstad in around place 30.Mhaesen 11:41, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I've given my argument, I've stated my sources. No reaction. Silence implies approval, so I'm going to be bold and change the list Mhaesen 15:01, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Please read the source dispute. DirectorStratton 03:39, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Rhein-Main

It's impossible to reach more than 3.7 Mio inhabitants for the Rhein-Main-Area in Germay on 1570 km². Around central city Frankfurt (Umlandverband) there are ~ 2.1 Mio inhabitants on ~ 2400 km². Frankfurt as city alone has ~ 650000 inhabitants on its 248 km² area.

It is possible that the land area listed is wrong. The definition is Darmstadt, Frankfurt am Main, Offenbach am Main and Wiesbaden plus immediately surrounding towns/cities, which means most of the Darmstadt region. Polaron 16:19, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Houston

Go to the Houston page here on the Wikipedia and the article says Houston is the largest city in Texas and the fourth largest in the United States, but this list has Dallas-Ft.Worth as larger than Houston as well as Philly. They simply are not. The Houston-Galveston area is known by everyone in Texas to be lItalic textarger than Dallas-Ft.Worth. In fact, it was recently reported in Texas newspapers that San Antonio has passed Dallas in population. If one was to properly rank Texas metro areas it would look like this: 1. Houston-Galveston 2. San Antonio 3. Dallas-Ft.Worth 4. Austin

  • Response It would be nice if you would ~~~~ your responses.. so that information can get back to you. You're talking about municipal population, not metropolitan population. Dallas-Fort Worth is larger than Houston-Galveston-Huntsville, and San Antonio is completely dwarfed by them. San Antonio Metro is still under 2 million.. Houston's metro is a little over 5, and DFW just passed 6. The article is accurate. Drumguy8800 20:06, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Response** Dallas-Ft Worth is by far the largest Metropolitan area in Texas and the largest inland Metro area in USA.

Mexico City

Mexico City is considered the largest city in the world by many, and has a population of at least 30 million in the metro area.

According to the UN and the USA census it is not the largest in the world by population, Tokyo still passes Mexico city by millions.--Wikiwo123 12:23, December 27 2005 (UTC)


Mexico City without the metropolitan area according the official measurements has 8.670 million people in October 2005. It's population including the metropolitan zone including the Distrito Federal (DF), 59 municipalities of the Mexico State and 1 of the State of Hidalgo is only around 19.9 million. But if you use a wide clasification, you must include the satellite city of Toluca that has 1.7 million people. It would be a result of 21.6 million of people in Mexico City urban area. It's impossible to have more than 30 million people. The states around would be added to the sum in order to have this quantity. Besides, Mexico city has a very low growth. And the central area is losing people.

Some people talk about a city plus very near cities. In the continuesly urban area or Mexico City there are only 21.6 million, but the Political limits contains 19.9 and the rest are from the political zone of Toluca. If we talk about the near cities, we might add the cities of Pachuca, Puebla, Tlaxcala, Cuernavaca, Cuautla, Tulancingo and probably Querétaro. That would have a population of 28 million people. But there's no reason to consider them as Mexico City urban area eventhough they are at 30 minutes by highways from the Mexico City limits.

Tehran

This page is about Metropolitan Areas by population not city proper, Right? So Tehran, Iran has more than 7 million people. If you add it's neighboring city Karaj the population should go up way more. Visit the page karaj and see what it's population is so that we can change it.I have tried to attempt this but i have not succeeded. --Wikiwo123 12:20, December 27 2005 (UTC)

Paris

I don't know how I haven't manage to find this page until now - it is almost a 100% reproduction of the battle I've been going through on the Paris page.

"Apples to Oranges" is about the best title anyone can give to "metropolitan area" comparisons. Every country has its own appellation for its own statistical accumulations compiled on criteria deemed most adaptive to their economy and style of living. Yet most geography-oriented English Wiki pages, when speaking of their version of their major cities' "area of influence", use the "metropolitan area" term as a direct translation of their respective statistical appellations - this is a source of confusion for "in-page" comprehension, and often a source of confusion period. If the use of this sort of statistic is called for, it would be most comprehensive (especially for an uninformed reader) that its local term come first with a link to an explanatory page, then perhaps place (metropolitan area) (if absolutely needed) after it with its link to the "metropolitan area" page that explains quite clearly the international ambiguity of its meaning (eg: commuter activity in Paris' aire urbaine (metropolitan area) ). If it were a simple question of miscomprehension it would be fine, but I've noticed that many "big city" pages have engaged in a "bigger than" battle without end. Paris vs. London is the one I'm most aware of.

For example, the French INSEE statistics institute's "aire urbaine", quite literally translated to "metropolitan area" throughout the Paris page (and used in fact as a theme for the entire article), is (basically) an "area of commuter influence" that includes "communes that have 40% of their populations commuting with communes that have 40% of their populations commuting with a central agglomeration ("unité urbaine")" (INSEE). This indirect inclusion scheme eglobes an area, larger than the Île-de-France administrative region, that is 45% farmland. Now how can this feasibly be compared to the "metropolitan area" of New York or London?

As far as I can see, any city comparisons outside of "agglomeration" data is not only silly but unsourcable. But then even agglomeration data varies: until only recently the UK sees two habitations 50m apart as being contiguous, and France 200m. Both definitions are set to 200m today, but the population density factor within is still different. Ambiguous, ambiguous, ambiguous.

Until these differences are sorted out, I say at least base an article's info on the statistical content of administrative regions, and mention the rest in passing - and in context! THEPROMENADER 13:32, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

As you can see, this list is closer to a list of urban agglomerations rather than metropolitan areas as the latter has a more varied definition worldwide. While agglomerations are not perfectly comparable, they are easier to compare across different countries compared to metropolitan areas. Note that the figures here are typically smaller than commonly listed metropolitan figures elsewhere in Wikipedia. In the case of Paris, the listed figure is a UN projection of the 1999 urban area INSEE figure. Polaron 14:50, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I see this, but this page isn't titled "List of urban areas". In any case, it is a result of original research as is not a copy of a publication in particular - in fact, all the polemic lies in the fact that there is no existing publication in existence undisputedly accomplishing the task this page tries to take on... THEPROMENADER 21:45, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
The current list is a copy of one set of numbers (the 2005 projections) from the 2003 UN World Urbanization Prospects Report so it is not original research. But you are correct in that there is no "list of metropolitan areas" that is undisputed and is comparable across all areas. Polaron 22:27, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
It is a copy of that UN publication? My apologies, I have that, and should have verified before claiming anything. Sorry. THEPROMENADER 23:09, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
But in that case, wouldn't it be simpler to title this page "UN list of Metropolitan areas" and in the introduction note on its failings with references to other pages on the subject? This way there would be no risk for error. But I don't really see the point of publishing lists of imprecise and contested statistics. THEPROMENADER 07:54, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

wrong km² to sq miles conversion

can someone please fix many of the conversions (for example Dallas Fort Worth) and other cities? It should be 8,991 sq. mi. / 23,287 km² (the sqare miles are totally off on many cities)

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