List of largest suburbs by population

Largest suburbs worldwide (excluding China)

The following is a table of the largest incorporated suburbs worldwide, with over 700,000 people.

A suburb here is defined as subordinate to a central city from a business or infrastructure sense, and it may or may not have more population than the central city due to arbitrary municipal definitions.

Excluded are transborder agglomerations. In the Pop date column, C stands for census, P for provisional result, E for estimate. Although the list is ordered by population for ease of reference, the figures are not comparable with each other due to differing dates and lack of updates by respective countries.

Caveats

• Cities in China are often defined in way as prefectures/counties, for the sake of simplicity they are listed in a separate list as explained in the respective section.
• A similar scenario applies to Taichung, Taoyuan, New Taipei, Tainan and Kaohsiung in Taiwan after they merged with their respective surrounding suburb counties in December 2010, despite they are controlled by Taiwan, except there is no nesting issues like in China. (No cities are parts of other cities.) Taiwan data is included here because it is complete and easy to follow.
• City of Pretoria in South Africa is exceedingly large at 6,298 km2, and as a national capital, hard to determine which is the core and suburb between Johannesburg and the capital. Therefore, it is excluded here.
• Malaysia has multiple types of local government, which confusingly overlap as the system was partially but not completely overhauled.
• Local data is woefully outdated for many of the poorest nations.

Rank	City	Population	Pop date	Metropolitan area	Nation
1	Giza	4,146,340	2017C	Greater Cairo	Egypt[1]
2	New Taipei City	3,979,208	2016E	Taipei	Taiwan[2]
3	Yokohama	3,733,975	2017E	Tokyo	Japan[3]
4	Ekurhuleni	3,379,104	2016E	Johannesburg	South Africa[4]
5	Incheon	3,002,172	2016E	Seoul	South Korea[5]
6	Quezon City	2,936,116	2015C	Manila	Philippines[6]
7	Bekasi	2,714,800	2015E	Greater Jakarta	Indonesia[7]
8	Ghaziabad	2,358,525	2011C	Delhi NCR	India[8]
9	Taoyuan	2,147,763	2016E	Taipei	Taiwan[2]
10	La Matanza	2,136,695	2017P	Buenos Aires	Argentina[9]
11	Depok	2,106,100	2014E	Greater Jakarta	Indonesia[7]
12	Tangerang	2,047,105	2015E	Greater Jakarta	Indonesia[10]
13	Omdurman	1,849,659	2008C	Khartoum	Sudan[11]
14	Thane	1,818,872	2011C	Mumbai Metropolitan Region	India[8]
15	Pimpri-Chinchwad	1,729,359	2011C	Pune	India[8]
16	Ecatepec de Morelos	1,685,806	2010C	Mexico City	Mexico[12]
17	Matola	1,616,267	2017C	Maputo	Mozambique[13]
18	Karaj	1,592,492	2016C	Greater Tehran	Iran[14]
19	Caloocan	1,583,978	2015C	Manila	Philippines[6]
20	Narayanganj	1,572,386	2012C	Greater Dhaka	Bangladesh
21	South Tangerang	1,543,209	2015E	Greater Jakarta	Indonesia[10]
22	Kobe City	1,533,923	2017E	Osaka	Japan[3]
23	Gurgaon	1,514,085	2011C	Delhi NCR	India[8]
24	Kawasaki	1,501,697	2017E	Tokyo	Japan[3]
25	Faridabad	1,404,653	2011C	Delhi/NCR	India[8]
26	Guarulhos	1,324,781	2015E	São Paulo	Brazil[15]
27	Saitama City	1,283,547	2017E	Tokyo	Japan[3]
28	Sharjah	1,270,000	2015C	Dubai-Sharjah-Ajman metropolitan area	United Arab Emirates[16]
28	Kalyan-Dombivali	1,246,381	2011C	Mumbai Metropolitan Region	India[8]
29	Suwon	1,231,224	2016E	Seoul	South Korea[5]
30	Vasai-Virar	1,221,223	2011C	Mumbai Metropolitan Region	India[8]
31	Ulsan	1,195,781	2016E	Busan-Ulsan	South Korea[5]
32	Gazipur	1,199,215	2011C	Greater Dhaka	Bangladesh
33	Zapopan	1,155,790	2010C	Guadalajara	Mexico[12]
34	Navi Mumbai	1,119,477	2011C	Mumbai Metropolitan Region	India[8]
35	Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl	1,110,565	2010C	Mexico City	Mexico[12]
36	Changwon	1,080,133	2016E	Busan-Ulsan	South Korea[5]
37	Howrah	1,072,161	2011C	Kolkata	India[8]
38	Goyang	1,051,590	2016E	Seoul	South Korea[5]
39	Bogor	1,047,900	2015E	Greater Jakarta	Indonesia[7]
40	São Gonçalo	1,038,081	2015E	Rio de Janeiro	Brazil[15]
41	Shubra El-Kheima	1,016,722	2006C	Cairo	Egypt
42	Callao	1,010,315	2015E	Greater Lima	Peru[17]
43	Khartoum North	1,012,211	2008C	Khartoum	Sudan[11]
44	Yongin	1,008,012	2016E	Seoul	South Korea[5]
45	Seongnam	992,159	2016E	Seoul	South Korea[5]
46	Chiba City	974,943	2017E	Tokyo	Japan[3]
47	El Alto	912,206	2017E	Greater La Paz	Bolivia[18]
48	Hawalli	911,274	2014E	Kuwait City	Kuwait[19]
49	Santo Domingo Este	891,952	2017E	Santo Domingo	Dominican Republic[20]
50	Salé	890,403	2014C	Rabat	Morocco[21]
51	Duque de Caxias	882,729	2015E	Rio de Janeiro	Brazil[15]
52	Bucheon	871,785	2016E	Seoul	South Korea[5]
53	Sakai	835,308	2017E	Osaka	Japan[3]
54	Naucalpan de Juárez	833,779	2010C	Mexico City	Mexico[12]
55	Seberang Perai	818,197	2010C	Penang	Malaysia[22]
55	São Bernardo do Campo	816,925	2015E	São Paulo	Brazil[15]
56	Farwaniya	816,015	2015E	Kuwait City	Kuwait[19]
57	Mira-Bhayander	814,655	2011C	Mumbai Metropolitan Region	India[8]
58	Nova Iguaçu	807,492	2015E	Rio de Janeiro	Brazil[15]
59	Taguig	804,915	2015C	Manila	Philippines[6]
60	Kajang	795,522	2010C	Greater Kuala Lumpur	Malaysia[22]
61	Antipolo	776,386	2015C	Manila	Philippines[6]
62	Hempstead	770,367	2016C	New York City	USA[23]
63	Ansan	744,356	2016E	Seoul	South Korea[5]
64	Pasig	755,300	2015C	Manila	Philippines[6]
65	Noida/Greater Noida	750,057	2011C	Delhi NCR	India[8]
66	Biên Hòa	749,000	2013E	Saigon	Vietnam[24]
67	Klang	744,062	2010C	Greater Kuala Lumpur	Malaysia[22]
68	Sagamihara	722,127	2017E	Tokyo	Japan[3]
69	Emfuleni	733,445	2016E	Johannesburg	South Africa[4]
70	Mississauga	721,599	2016C	Greater Toronto Area	Canada[25][26]
71	Bhiwandi	711,329	2011C	Mumbai Metropolitan Region	India[8]
72	Santo André	710,210	2015E	São Paulo	Brazil[15]
73	Subang Jaya	708,296	2010C	Greater Kuala Lumpur	Malaysia[22]

Suburbs in the People's Republic of China

Cities in People's Republic of China and Republic of China are often defined in way as prefectures/counties. Their prefecture/county limits often are physically more extensive than entire metropolitan areas, encompassing large rural areas and outright separate cities. "Suburbs" may be located both within the municipality and/or adjacent to it, depending on how the area agglomerated. Some urban districts, as in the case of Wanzhou Urban District in Chongqing Municipality (Province Level), are separated by farmlands from the core metropolitan area and functions as a suburban city in spite of naming.

As to what constitutes a "city" in the PRC, there exist other definitions of city limits are in actual usage, such as combination of several districts where urban area of the central city is dominant, or roads, railways, natural boundaries, or a combination thereof. This is commonly designated by the central statistics bureaus as "urban districts" (区), however some counties(县) are also included, as well as some cities opt for towns (镇) rather than counties. Some counties/districts (e.g. Handan County, Handan City(Prefecture level)) are indeed suburbs of their respective central cities (e.g. Congtai, Hanshan, Fuxing districts of Handan City(Prefecture level) are a common definition of true urban area of Handan, although this definition now often also involves Handan County as the city expands).

In the case of Chaoshan Metropolitan Area, Jiēyáng (Prefecture-level city) urban districts border that of the central city of Shantou (Prefecture-level city), effectively spanning neighboring municipalities. Complicating the matter is the nesting of city structures, as Jieyang municipality itself is a suburb of Shantou, even though Puning city (County level city, and can be a suburb of Shantou) lies within Jieyang's jurisdiction. Suzhou, despite having cities within it that could be considered "suburbs", could itself be considered a suburb of Shanghai as commute patterns are indicative of it.

References