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News: Recently UN DESA released the new World Urbanization Prospects 2025 report using the Degree of Urbanization methodology.
About World Urbanisation Prospects 2025 Report
- It gives population estimates and projections using the Degree of Urbanization.
- Prepared by: It is prepared by the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA).
- Global findings
- Urban growth pattern: In 2025, cities house 45 per cent of world’s population, towns 36 per cent and rural areas 19 per cent.
- Rising megacities:
- The number of megacities (over 10 million people) increased from 8 in 1975 to 33 in 2025, with 19 located in Asia.
- Jakarta (Indonesia) is the most populous city, followed by Dhaka (Bangladesh), Tokyo (Japan), and New Delhi (India).
- Dominance of small and medium cities: Around 96 per cent of the world’s 12,000 cities have fewer than one million inhabitants, and 81 per cent have fewer than 2.5 lakh people.
- Rural areas remain the most common settlement type in 62 countries today, down from 116 in 1975.
- By 2050, this number is projected to decline further to 44 countries.
- India specific findings
- High town population: India has 44 per cent of its population living in towns.
- Large town population globally: India and China together account for over 1.2 billion town dwellers, which is more than 40 per cent of the world’s total town population.
- Over one-third of shrinking cities are in China and 17% in India
- Rapid urban growth projection: India is among seven countries—along with Nigeria, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Bangladesh, and Ethiopia—that will contribute over half of the projected 986 million increase in global city dwellers by 2050.
