Jakarta Moves Ahead of Tokyo As World's Most Populated City (nbcnews.com)

(Tuesday November 25, 2025 @05:40PM (msmash) from the PSA dept.)

[1]schwit1 writes:

> Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, tops a ranking that is increasingly dominated by Asia: the world's most populated city. It edged out Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka, and Japan's Tokyo to earn the title in a [2]new United Nations report. [PDF]

>

> With an estimated population of nearly 42 million residents, Jakarta soared from 33rd place in the previous rankings, in 2018, that were topped by Tokyo. It's followed by Dhaka, with 36 million, which the report says is "expected to become the world's largest city by mid-century."

[1] https://slashdot.org/~schwit1

[2] https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.development.desa.pd/files/undesa_pd_2025_wup2025_summary_of_results.pdf

Jakarta watches as... (Score:2)

by TheMiddleRoad ( 1153113 )

... Tokyo drifts drifts down the rankings.

Why does this "biggest city" story matter? (Score:2, Offtopic)

by shanen ( 462549 )

Better than the usual FP contribution from an AC, but I'm not getting your point and sure wouldn't moderate the FP interesting or funny (if'n I ever had a mod point to give). Perhaps you care to clarify (and even offer a more focused title)?

I do have some complicated thoughts on the topic. Maybe I'm even qualified as a resident of Tokyo to care about the problem? Calls for my ancient and little used sociologist's hat, however... But I really wish I had studied more psychology.

But I can reduce my answer to m

Indonesia wants to move their capital (Score:3)

by Vlad_the_Inhaler ( 32958 )

Jakarta has a host of problems and [1]Indonesia wishes to move the capital to a completely new site [cnbc.com] but this plan is not going smoothly, I have seen several reports of major problems recently. The reasons for the move include [2]Jakarta sinking by two inches a year [memesita.com] when it's already in danger of dropping below sea level.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/28/indonesia-to-move-capital-from-jakarta-to-nusantara-but-it-wont-be-easy.html

[2] https://www.memesita.com/indonesias-new-capital-timeline-jakarta-relocation/

But, is this ... (Score:2)

by PPH ( 736903 )

.. a good thing?

What's a "city"? (Score:4, Informative)

by larryjoe ( 135075 )

Tokyo, the city, is well defined and has about 14 million people. The Tokyo metropolitan area has no well-defined boundaries, so how many people live in that greater metro area depends on where the boundaries are drawn. The UN draws the boundaries to include around 33 million, but with a looser boundary, that population could be 41 million. Of course, the same fungible boundaries apply to all cities.

The bottom line is that everyone gets top draw their own boundaries and come up with their own bragging list of "largest" cities. This really isn't a problem because all the list is useful for is bragging.