Largest Metropolitan region, by area

[skyliner22 16]

Well the thing with Tokyo is it is such an immense urban area that just keeps growing. There is no actual Tokyo city. Tokyo itself is made up of 23 wards all governed by a central government in Shinjuku in the Metropolitan Tower. Each ward is basically its own city in a way, or more like boroughs like in New York. Outside of the 23 wards are small cities and towns occupying the rest of Tokyo Metropolitan Sector. Then the cities in nearby prefectures such as Kawasaki (KanagawaPref.), Saitama (Saitama Pref.), and Chiba (Chiba Pref.) are part of the metro. And then we have Yokohama which is large enough to have its own suburbs which extend even further throghout Shizuoka prefecture and its suburbs connecting to Tokyo. Then up in Saitama Prefecture, where it gets more mountainous small cities and villages are combining into new cities and entering the metro. Because of its size and sprawl, calculating the exact extensiveness of Tokyo Metro is very difficult.

But comparing to the scale of Houston Metro it isnt as big, that size would probably be Tokyo all the way to sea of Japan. But Houston metro is probably a very subrban sprawl feel as where Tokyo, you can see that there is basically nothing but a sea of buildings.

The green is the 23 wards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo

The Kanto region is basically Tokyo Metro

Dark Green is the Kanto Plain Region

[Micah 16]

But Houston metro is probably a very subrban sprawl feel as where Tokyo, you can see that there is basically nothing but a sea of buildingsquote>

Actually, Houston is a sea of buildings too. It's just a calmer sea.

Houston Sprawl:

The actual city: 

Here's an image from NASA of Houston which includes the Port of Houston (Largest in America & 6th largest in the world): 

[skyliner22 16]

Actually, according to Wikipedia, it says New York has the largest Metro area and Tokyo is second.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Tokyo_Area

Oh, it says Yokohama is a suburb, but its population is about 3 million.

[montrouge 2]

but Yokohama is also in the urban area of Tokyo

Actually Tokyo urban area has four city with more than 1 million inhabitants

Tokyo Yokohama Saitama and Kawasaki and Chiba is close to the million.

You have some problem with the geography 

Yokohama is the capital of the Kanagawa prefecture.

and Yokohama is inner suburbs of Tokyo

Kawasaki is the only city between Tokyo and Yokohama and it has no urban limit between Tokyo and Yokahama.

Yokohama is connected at Tokyo by the thru of Tokyo metro and many other train lines

Many inhabitants of Yokohama work in Tokyo.

If Yokohama is not include in Tokyo metro area 

Okland is not include in San Francisco metro area

Fort Worth is not include in Dallas metro area.

If Yokohama was not in Tokyo urban area I would agree but it is not the case

[JDRCRASH 53]

@skyliner22:What about a map of L.A. eh?

[skyliner22 16]

montrouge: I never said Yokohama was not in the greater Tokyo area, I know it is, I was born in Tokyo (Setagaya ward), ive been to Yokohama; and thats the second largest city of the Metro. Well technically since Yokohama is in Kanagawa Prefecture, it is not part of Tokyo proctor, but the greater Tokyo area. And i know that there are several major expressways and rail lines connecting Tokyo and Yokohama, especially the famous Wangan Expressway that has the Yokohama Bay Bridge and Rainbow Bridge, both very beautiful bridges.

Yokohama Bay Bridge

Rainbow Bridge

[matche 0]

how about jakarta???

i know it´s not the biggest metropolitan region, but i think it also should be mentioned...

the metropolitan area of jakarta is called Jabotabek (JAkarta-BOgor-TAngerang-BEKasi) and it´s population estimated 23,6 million in 2005..so 2007 live more than 24 million people there.

2016 it´ll reach 32million.

i´ve already been there and can tell you that numbers are wrong the dark figure is much much higher. registration in indonesia doesn´t mean the same as in europe/america

interessting is also..1945 jakarta had 600.000 inhabitants..2007 more than 8million

[DougOZ 0]

did some one have checked the Sao Paulo Brazil, metro area?

and how abt Mexico City?

just curious

[DougOZ 0]

The metropolitan area of S

[Duke87 1,070]

The problem is that "metro area" is rather arbitrary.  There's really no standard definition, nor is a good one really possible.

On the other hand, comparing cities alone is a rather poor measure, too, since that's dependent on where the political lines are drawn and has nothing to do with where people actually live.

Either way, though, area is a poor measure. After all, it can be dense and urban or covered in wilderness.

Population is better, but again, it runs into the trouble of that the city limit is not a representative measure of where the population is. The Metro area has the aforementioned problems.

Population density is good, but it's still can't provide a complete picture because it says nothing about over what area that density is maintained. A small urban core can have the same density as a huge sprawl, and the two are radically different.

And this is why you see varying statistics and lots of disagreements over which city is bigger. The reality is far too complex for all the statistics in the world to adequately describe it. And since different people see things differently a lot of that reality is rather subjective, too.

[ILL Tonkso 1,239]

Size wise, the London Metro area technically takes up the whole of South East England (especially now we have South Eastern Commuter High Speed Rail in place) So thats pretty big. Not largest population wise, and im not sure how that matches up with Tokyos entire area. Probably about the same, though a lot less populated and with large green belt areas.

[Super- Timo 0]

plus london is cooler then all these other cities! (no offence)

Can i ask does it really matter?

i think its tokyo that is the biggest in the world.

[Cleaner475 150]

Size wise, the London Metro area technically takes up the whole of South East England (especially now we have South Eastern Commuter High Speed Rail in place) So thats pretty big. Not largest population wise, and im not sure how that matches up with Tokyo's entire area. Probably about the same, though a lot less populated and with large green belt areas.quote>

Plus now places like my hometown of Southend are being swallowed up by London as Southend airport has now been renamed Southend-London. Soon we will probably become Londons official new airport to add to its collections joining Luton, Gatwick and Heathrow.

Richard

[owenluby 1]

Hey, I think Melbourne's larger than Sydney, area wise...

[AndreNolde 0]

Sorry but I think here were big mistakes made! You all talking about Tokyo is the biggest metropolitean area thats right but in all your opinions there is one area missing.

Everyone thinks one city is an Metropolitan area but thats wrong!

For example in the graphic on page 1 here there is no Ruhrgebiet.

In Ruhrgebiet live approaximetly 10 million people or in the area around.

[AndreNolde 0]

Rank	Metropolitan area name	Country	Population of metropolitan area	Population of municipality
1	Moscow	Russia	14,612,602	10,425,075 (2006)
2	London	United Kingdom	12,629,020	7,517,700 (2005)
3	Istanbul	Turkey	12,249,536	8,803,468 (2000)
4	Rhine-Ruhr

[AndreNolde 0]

thats a list of the biggest metropolitan areas in europe only

[JDRCRASH 53]

Los Angeles by far. As I said before, it's suburbs apparantly reach all the way to Mammoth Lakes.

Then again guys, if that High-Speed Maglev from L.A. to Las Vegas and the High-Speed Rail Project from San Francisco to San Diego are both completed.....and urbanization occurs.........we will be looking at an area twice the size of Boshington......

[doubleno7 0]

The High Speed Maglev your talking about is going to be awesome.

Seriously, Google it.

[david1314 44]

I think without a doubt the Boston-New York-Newark-Philly-Wash DC is by far the largest metro agglomeration. Every other city that comes close (Mexico, LA, Tokyo, Sao Paulo.... all have mountains that PREVENT them from ever approaching the "Boshington" metro (as JDRCrash called it). Only London or Paris reasonably have the ability to grow to similar size as it.

Lagos or Joburg also might be right up there in time...They lack the economy though to have metropolises upon another metropolis. Also, the Yellow River valley in China might approach as it grows based on the lopsided economy in China severely favoring Beijing (and to a lesser extent, Shanghai)

[JDRCRASH 53]

No direct offense to you, but that belief (probably originating back East) is most certainly naive.

We still have the Mojave Desert, as well as the San Joaquin valley.
The San Gabriel Mountains are a huge obstacle.....however!.... the idea of tunneling has already been proposed.
The Glendale-Palmdale Tunnel.
The Apple Valley San Gabriel valley Tunnel? I forgot the source.

Put it this way:
It took SoCal less than 50 years to double in size, so what's to say it won't happen again, if not at a faster rate?
By 2040, over 60 million people will call California they're home. Right now over 60% of the population lives in Southern California.
33 years from now, that's over 40 million.
And as we have seen in the past, old estimates are highly understated, so that number may be larger.

[allez l'om 1]

yhe biggest area f the world is tokyo with 34 millions of inhabitants and a suburb of 100 km

[david1314 44]

100 km is NOTHING compared with the 450 miles of NYC/Boston/DC...Long island alone is that long.

JDR, SoCal will NOT double in size (or even 50%) over the next 50 years. There are too many people. The only reason it grew so virulently was because it could support millions of people but only had thousands. Now that it's pushing 25 million, it will not double quickly. California's growth has moved elsewhere too (literally). Denver, Phoenix, and Charlotte/Raleigh were the centers of growth in the 1990s, and continue.

And it doesn't change the fact that you've hit the limit of water usage...it also doesn't change the fact that your precious Colo. River is growing many times faster upstream (on Colorado's western slope), and is taking water before LA even has a chance to see it. It also doesn't change the fact that water is already piped in from the next most convenient source and that LA will hit other metro area water sources before it could grow to the size of NYC/Boston/DC.

Also, the San Andreas fault creates a clear and consistent division along the Bay Area and SoCal urban agglomerations. It is impossible to image actual suburban development all the way up and down the fault. So in that respect, they will always be separated and unable to contest the size of NYC/Boston/DC.

It's useful to keep in mind that even if the LA agglomeration does absorb San Diego and Phoenix, it is still not as large as NYC/Boston/DC. If it absorbs the Bay area into a super agglomeration for the pacific (like its atlantic counterpart) it's conceivable it could be larger....but I think an urban primacy is lacking between San Jose and SoCal. Fresno seems to occupy the intermediate spot that Philly does, but Philly is 10x larger in population, and has Newark and Baltimore on either side of it which are themselves as large or larger than Fresno.

Only eastern China and the Rhine and the Low Countries in Europe could geographically ever compete with NYC/Boston/DC, but it's useful to put into context that this would mean Amsterdam to Munich, or Beijing to Shanghai would be just slightly larger. For London to get in the mix, you're talking Portsmouth to Edinburgh.

And all that assumes the NYC/Boston/DC area stops at its current extent...which it won't. Since it has ample growing room, and appears to prefer growth, it's impossible to see it being surpassed.

[City2TheMax 3]

Interesting - I would've guessed the L.A. basin, but I've been proven wrong. I guess that area is just dense, but not as expansive as some other areas.

[JDRCRASH 53]

This is assuming that Southern California NEVER tries to seperate fresh and salt water from the ocean.

Desalinization plants have already been looked to as a solution. Believe me, if people are desperate enough to live in Southern California, with it's world-famous micro-climate complex, they WILL risk taking water from the sea, and pay the high costs needed to pay for such a multi-billion dollar undertaking.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't part of the urbanized Mojave Desert above the San Andreas fault line?

Um, ample growing room? I don't think so. It was just stated ago that Boshington has just about run out of room, so that doesn't make any sense that they could densify outwards. Besides, nothing is impossible. I really don't think they love urbanism that much that they will want to the alternative to creating an ocean of high-rises. It was also stated that the housing market cycle is in the downward trend, so there is no way that that could happen anyway, regardless if they wanted to or not.

In contrast, Southern California is well over 42,000 sq. miles.

[JDRCRASH 53]

This sums it up pretty well:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Southern_California.png

[longhorn 25]

If you're talking contiguous urban area, it has to be the Tokaido corridor, which goes from the Northern Tokyo suburbs all the way down to Kyushu on the Pacific coast of Japan. There's virtually no let up in urbanization throughout the entire route. There's either a mountain or a city.

The Northeast corridor is fairly contiguous, but there is a brief rural area in between Boston and NYC.