Countries by Population in urban agglomerations of more than 1 million (% of total population)

Ranking 2025

Values shown in %.

Analysis

This metric measures the share of a country's total population living in large metropolitan areas. Specifically, population in urban agglomerations of more than one million is the percentage of a country's population living in metropolitan areas that in 2018 had a population of more than one million people. The unit is percentage of total population, and higher values indicate a greater share living in qualifying agglomerations. Countries without any metropolitan area that reached the one million threshold by 2018 score zero and are excluded from the ranking. The dataset covers 121 countries, all with data from within the last seven years, with 100% of datapoints classified as official quality. The indicator code is EN.URB.MCTY.TL.ZS, sourced from the World Bank World Development Indicators for 2025. The viability checks flagged 20 extreme outliers at the 3-sigma threshold, and the range spans 4.40% to 100%, a spread of over 2,174%.

At the top of the ranking, Hong Kong SAR and Singapore share rank 1 at 100%, consistent with their status as city-states or near-equivalent territories where the entire population lives within a single large agglomeration. Puerto Rico ranks 3rd at 76.27%, followed by Kuwait at 68.39% and Japan at 65.69%. Australia ranks 7th at 61.10%, reflecting concentration in its major coastal cities. Uruguay (rank 10, 52.83%) and Paraguay (rank 11, 51.72%) both exceed 50%, driven by the dominance of single large capital or primary cities relative to their total populations. South Korea ranks 12th at 51.13% and Saudi Arabia 13th at 50.65%, rounding out countries where more than half the population lives in qualifying agglomerations.

The middle of the ranking shows considerable diversity. The United States ranks 15th at 47.04%, placing it among the top tier despite its large geographic size and dispersed settlement pattern. China ranks 31st at 32.73%, reflecting that while it has many large cities, a substantial share of its population remains outside the qualifying agglomerations. Notably, Congo, Rep. ranks 6th at 65.34%, higher than the United States, the United Kingdom (rank 42, 27.37%), and Germany (rank 107, 9.79%). Germany's low position at rank 107 with just 9.79% stands out among major economies, attributable to its polycentric urban structure where population is spread across many cities rather than concentrated in one or two dominant agglomerations. Poland ranks 120th at just 4.98%, and Ethiopia last at 4.40%, both reflecting low concentration in qualifying large metropolitan centers.

Several data limitations apply to this metric. The qualifying threshold is fixed at metropolitan areas that had a population of more than one million in 2018, meaning cities that have grown past one million since 2018 are not included, and cities that qualified in 2018 but may have shrunk are still counted. This static reference year can distort rankings for countries with rapidly changing urban landscapes. The metric also does not capture overall urbanization rates; a country can be highly urbanized without having any agglomeration exceeding one million, in which case it would not appear in this dataset at all. Countries with a single dominant primate city score differently from those with many medium-sized cities, even at similar overall urbanization levels. Boundary definitions for metropolitan areas vary across countries, which affects comparability.

Methodology

The metric is drawn from the World Bank World Development Indicators, indicator code EN.URB.MCTY.TL.ZS, with a reference data year of 2025. The definition used is: population in urban agglomerations of more than one million is the percentage of a country's population living in metropolitan areas that in 2018 had a population of more than one million people. The qualifying agglomeration threshold is fixed to 2018 population figures. The dataset covers 121 countries, all with data from within the last seven years (100% recency). All 121 datapoints are classified as official quality, exceeding the 70% threshold. The ranking spans values from 4.40% (Ethiopia, rank 121) to 100% (Hong Kong SAR and Singapore, rank 1), a spread of 2,174.3%. Viability checks identified 20 extreme outliers at the 3-sigma threshold. Average year-over-year change across the dataset is 0.9%, indicating low volatility. Countries without any metropolitan area exceeding one million as of 2018 are excluded from the dataset, which limits the country count to 121 and means the ranking does not represent all countries globally.

Sources

• World Bank