Tokyo is the world's largest urban agglomeration
Roughly 37 million people share one continuous Japanese metropolis — more than the entire population of Canada.
When the United Nations measured the world’s cities for its 2018 World Urbanization Prospects, one urban area towered above the rest. Tokyo ranked as the world’s largest city, with a continuous built-up agglomeration of about 37 million inhabitants — a sprawl that spills well beyond the city’s administrative limits across the Kanto plain.
The next-largest agglomerations trailed by millions: Delhi at roughly 29 million, Shanghai at 26 million, and Mexico City and Sao Paulo at around 22 million each.
Tokyo alone holds more people than all of Canada — and nearly a third of Japan’s entire population.
The exact ranking depends on how you draw the boundary. Stricter “metropolitan area” definitions can push Tokyo to third place behind newer giants, but by the UN’s measure of one contiguous urban mass, no city on Earth is bigger.
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