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Dhaka held onto its crown as the most densely populated city in the world with 30,093 people per square kilometer in 2022, but when compared year-on-year, the population density actually shows an 18.53 per cent decline.
The capital city of Bangladesh was home to 36,941 people per square kilometer in 2021.
Moreover, Dhaka’s built-up urban areas expanded to 619 square kilometres in 2022, from 556 square kilometres
in 2021, according to a draft report for the 18th annual edition of Demographia World Urban Areas released on Sunday. The report ranked 990 cities in terms of population density across the globe, and each of those have a total population exceeding five lakh people. Dhaka is currently home to 1.86 crore people.
Among the world’s most densely populated cities, Dhaka is followed by Tanta of Egypt with 27,800 people per square kilometre, Macau of China with 27,684, Surat of India with 27,439 and Kinshasa of Congo with 27,083. According to the study, a built-up urban area, urbanised area or urban agglomeration is a continuously built up land mass of urban development that is within a labour market.
An urban area is best thought of as the “urban footprint” – the lighted area [city lights] that can be observed from an airplane or satellite on a clear night.
The ranking estimates the current year population from the base year population, adjusted by population projections made by the United Nations, or by national statistics authorities and satellite images.
This report also included Narayanganj with Dhaka from its 2020 iteration.
Why did Dhaka’s population density drop?
Speaking to The Business Post, former general secretary Adil Mohammed Khan of Bangladesh Institute of Planners (BIP) said, “Due to a change in the point of consideration, the result of a study can change.
“As Dhaka’s built-up urban areas expanded by 63 square kilometres this year, it impacted the study’s result. Because newly expanded urban areas contain comparatively low population density compared to the older ones.”
Also the executive director at the Institute for Planning and Development, Adil said, “There are no indications that Dhaka’s population is dropping, no outbound migration has been observed, and no decentralisation has been seen.”
Dhaka most densely populated for 7 years
Dhaka held the rank of the most densely populated city in the world for seven consecutive years.
In 2020, Dhaka was home to 33,878 people per square kilometre. The city’s population density was 41,000 per square kilometre in 2019, 47,000 per square kilometre in 2018, 45,700 per square kilometre in 2017, and 44,100 per square kilometre in 2016.
Sylhet no longer among top 5
Sylhet is no longer listed among the top 10 most densely populated cities globally, ranking 23rd with 20,302 people per square kilometre in 2022. Sylhet had ranked 5th in the previous year’s report with 30,116 people per square kilometre.
When compared year-on-year, the population density in Sylhet witnessed a decline of 32.59 per cent. The 49-square-kilometre city is currently home to 9.99 lakh people.
World gets 8 new megacities in 2022
A city with at least 10 million people is called a megacity. This year, eight cities joined with the previous 36, raising the number to 44. Among the eight new megacities, five came from China, and one from India, Peru and Columbia each.
Chongqing, Xi’an, Zhengzhou, Dongguan and Wuhan of China, Hyderabad of India, Lima of Peru and Colombia’s capital Bogota have earned the rank of new mega city in this year’s report.
There are a total of 97 urban areas with at least 50,00,000 residents, up from 90 last year. Besides, nearly 1,000 cities have populations above five lakh.
Top five cities by population size
In 2022, Tokyo-Yokohama of Japan with 37,732,000 people ranked as the most populated built-up urban areas on the earth.
It is followed by Jakarta of Indonesia with 33,756,000 people, Delhi of
India with 32,226,000 people, Guangzhou-Foshan with 26,940,000 people and Mumbai of India with 24,973,000 people.
The report ranks Dhaka as the 13th most populated city in the world.
Top 5 largest cities by land area
The United States of America hosts the four largest cities by land areas among the global top five.
New York, USA is the largest city of the world with 12,093 square kilometres, while Boston-Providence with 9,539 square kilometres ranks as the second this year.
Tokyo-Yokohama of Japan with 8,231 square kilometres of land area is the third largest city.
USA’s Atlanta with 7,400 square kilometres and Chicago with 7,006 square kilometres are the fourth and fifth largest city by land area respectively.
