At some point during 2008, according to the latest UN statistics, more than half of the world’s population will live in urban areas. There are other profound changes underway – for instance, the rapidly growing proportion of the world’s urban population and its largest cities located in Africa and Asia, as shown in the figures below. Asia now has half the world’s urban population and Africa’s urban population is larger than that of Northern America. Europe’s dominance has decreased dramatically. In 1910, the nations that now constitute Europe had more than half the world’s 100 largest cities; by 2000, they had only ten. Europe has none of the world’s 100 fastest-growing large cities (in terms of population growth rates between 1950 and 2000) but has most of the world’s slowest-growing (and declining cities). Most of Europe’s great centers of industry are no longer among the world’s largest cities.

Asia and Africa have three-quarters of the world’s 100 fastest-growing large cities (in terms of population growth rates between 1950 and 2000); China alone has 15 of them, and India has eight. Latin America and the Caribbean now have a declining proportion of the world’s urban population – but a still growing proportion of its largest cities and many of its fastest-growing large cities (especially Brazil and Mexico). However, there is an economic logic to the location of the world’s largest cities as most are concentrated in the largest and most successful economies.