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Biggest World Cities A-Z

Starting with each letter A-Z, guess the world city with the highest urban area population.
According to citypopulation.de, January 2023
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: March 3, 2023
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First submittedFebruary 10, 2012
Times taken165,275
Average score57.7%
Rating4.37
5:00
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Keep scrolling down for answers and more stats ...
 
Population
Region
City
A
9.30 m
South Asia
Ahmedabad
B
20.9 m
East Asia
Beijing
C
22.2 m
Africa
Cairo
D
33.4 m
South Asia
Delhi
E
1.40 m
North America
Edmonton
F
4.55 m
East Asia
Fuzhou
G
67.8 m
East Asia
Guangzhou
H
13.5 m
Southeast Asia
Ho Chi Minh City
I
16.1 m
Near East
Istanbul
J
28.9 m
Southeast Asia
Jakarta
K
19.1 m
South Asia
Karachi
L
21.4 m
Africa
Lagos
M
26.7 m
Southeast Asia
Manila
 
Population
Region
City
N
23.1 m
North America
New York City
O
17.7 m
East Asia
Osaka
P
11.4 m
Europe
Paris
Q
7.25 m
East Asia
Qingdao
R
13.4 m
South America
Rio de Janeiro
S
40.0 m
East Asia
Shanghai
T
40.8 m
East Asia
Tokyo
U
4.73 m
East Asia
Urumqi
V
3.03 m
North America
Vancouver
W
11.8 m
East Asia
Wuhan
X
14.5 m
East Asia
Xiamen
Y
6.00 m
Southeast Asia
Yangon
Z
9.45 m
East Asia
Zhengzhou
+2
Level 63
Apr 24, 2018
Los Angeles has dropped from the list, the over population of Africa now begins, by the end of the century Lagos is expected to have over 80 million people living in it.
+3
Level 24
Apr 24, 2018
This is not meant to stir debate, but was Yangon renamed Naypyidaw, or did the capital actually move to another city? I put Yangon as a wild guess and was astounded it was right because I thought the city no longer existed. In any case, I apologize for my ignorance on this issue.
+4
Level 73
Apr 24, 2018
They are different cities. You're probably mixing up that Yangon was formerly called Rangoon.
+1
Level 63
Apr 24, 2018
Naypyidaw and Yangon are two different cities.
+4
Level 82
Apr 24, 2018
Yangon/Rangoon is a huge and ancient city on the coast of Myanmar. Naypyidaw is a relatively new planned city in central Myanmar, famous for being eerily and almost totally empty in spite of its massive wide boulevards; large temples, buildings and public spaces. The government moved there in 2006.
+8
Level 60
Apr 24, 2018
Urumqi is might be in China, but is actually located in Central Asia
+1
Level 65
Feb 22, 2024
That's why I almost missed it, was thinking of the Pacific coast
+3
Level 66
Apr 24, 2018
I tried Prague. Didn't think of Paris.
+5
Level 59
Apr 25, 2018
I spent the entire time trying to spell "Poughkeepsie" but then realized it was too small.
+2
Level 53
May 8, 2023
and i kept trying to spell palikir
+2
Level 38
May 20, 2018
Near East? For Istanbul?
+4
Level 74
Jun 28, 2018
Yes.
+3
Level 72
Aug 30, 2019
Yeah, I had never heard the phrase "near east" before. I spent more time trying to figure out what part of the world it refered to than I should have.

Personally, I did find the regions distinctly unhelpful, although that's more because of the plethora of various asian ones. I understand why QM uses them though.

+1
Level 82
Feb 25, 2021
The regions are very helpful if you're used to looking at maps and see the same ones used commonly. As always, Algernon, speak for yourself.
+2
Level 71
Mar 12, 2021
Personally, they helped me a lot. No way I would've figured out E or V (or many of the other ones) if it didn't explicitly state they were in North America.
+1
Level 72
Sep 3, 2021
@Kal,

Who the hell else would I be speaking for!?

Nowhere in my message do I imply I speak for anyone other than myself.

+1
Level 82
Nov 8, 2022
Though you have, commonly and repeatedly, elsewhere on the site spoken for others claiming (wrongly) that certain questions were impossible to get for non-Americans... you didn't do that here... but that's irrelevant anyway as "speak for yourself" is a common rhetorical device not an admonishment.
+1
Level 72
Dec 21, 2022
You really are a proper bell end.
+1
Level 65
Feb 22, 2024
Was this before or after individual Asian regions were added?
+1
Level 34
May 25, 2018
I knew Zhengzhou........but forgot how to spell it :P
+1
Level 40
Sep 2, 2018
Isn't Ho Chi Minh larger than Hyderabad?
+1
Level 85
Jul 10, 2019
Probably depends on the source, but it's certainly a contender. Around the same as Hyderabad.
+3
Level 47
Sep 28, 2018
I think Fuzhou is bigger than Fortaleza; citypopulation.de lists it with a population of 7.5 million!

If we go off of citypopulation.de, here are a few more cities that I think are incorrect:

-Chongqing over Cairo, 28.8 million vs. 18.2 million

-Harbin over Hyderabad (and Ho Chi Minh), 10.2 million vs. 9.6 million

-Wuhan over Washington DC, 10.8 million vs. 8.6 million

+1
Level 65
Feb 22, 2024
I don't think Harbin and Chongqing are right, they include more than the actual urban area
+1
Level 66
Oct 11, 2018
Urban area and Metropolitan population are the same, right?
+1
Level 72
Feb 21, 2019
could you please accept xiamin as an alternate spelling?
+2
Level 43
Dec 28, 2021
No.
+9
Level 76
Jul 10, 2019
It's so strange how there are no bigger cities beginning with E. It's not like E is an uncommon letter in most other languages or anything.
+4
Level 85
Jul 10, 2019
I agree with you about that, Tramp. You'd think there would be a lot of cities named "East" something, too.
+2
Level 83
Apr 17, 2022
Tokyo means “eastern capital”.
+1
Level 39
Jul 18, 2022
In what language?
+1
Level 65
Feb 22, 2024
!Xóõ
+1
Level 53
Dec 8, 2022
tokyoese
+1
Level 82
Jul 10, 2019
Pretty easy with the region clues
+5
Level 73
Jul 17, 2019
But we're not all know-it-alls.
+4
Level 82
Feb 11, 2020
All quizzes are difficult if you don't know things.
+1
Level 65
Feb 22, 2024
Do you not recognize the regions???
+2
Level 68
Jul 11, 2019
When you just play around and completely guess Fuzhou and it works!
+1
Level 55
Jul 11, 2019
Only missed X and Z, not too bad
+1
Level 73
Jul 17, 2019
Citypopulation.de;

Xiamen 2016 estimate; 3,920,000

Xi'an 2016 estimate; 8,832,100

+1
Level ∞
Jul 17, 2019
Urban area population
+1
Level 45
Jul 20, 2019
Edmonton? Really?
+2
Level 50
Aug 28, 2019
lmao i guessed zhengzhou because it sounds like a chinese city name and it counted
+2
Level 67
Aug 29, 2019
I feel so dumb. I got everything except for Vancouver, where I live.
+3
Level 47
Aug 31, 2019
All I could think was Kolkata for K when I forgot Karachi!
+1
Level 44
Jan 14, 2020
Harder than I thought it would be! Thumbs up though :)
+4
Level 68
Jan 29, 2020
I guessed Edmonton as a joke figuring I missed some obvious US city... wow was I wrong. That's actually kind of hilarious.
+3
Level 66
Mar 8, 2020
Only two that came to mind were edmonton and edinburgh and I dismissed both, thinking, surely there are bigger ones around..
+2
Level 82
Feb 24, 2020
Citypopulation.de lists Wuhan as larger than Washington, and its numbers are if anything conservative (most figures elsewhere seem to say 11 million - they've been quoted in the media a lot recently for some reason...)
+1
Level 82
Nov 4, 2020
yeah, pretty sure this is including the surrounding region. I live in the Baltimore-DC area, and Washington is not that big XD
+1
Level 60
May 8, 2023
Changed by now.
+2
Level 42
Apr 27, 2020
Just wondering, why Shenzhen, Foshan, Dongguan etc. are still considered with Guangzhou for urban area, while Chongqing which is today supposed to be the biggest urban agglomeration in the world (at least according to some Chinese sources) is still listed with few million inhabitants?
+1
Level 43
Dec 28, 2021
Chongqing is actually still quite far from being the biggest. Yes, it can be considered be the biggest, but only if you count the population based on city proper. The area of the municipality of Chongqing legally is about the size of Austria, so it makes sense why it has a lot of population. But not all parts of Chongqing are urban areas though, hence, its urban area population are actually smaller than its city proper population. Even Chinese cities like Shanghai, Beijing & Guangzhou are still bigger in terms of urban areas population.

For your information, the top 3 biggest urban agglomerations in China are : Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta & Jing-Jin-Ji Region. You may look them up and look for their population size, which are tens of millions of people, the size comparable to countries like Spain, Italy or UK (size varies by sources). Each of them consist of multiple large cities with their own metropolitan areas. They are also among the world's largest urban agglomerations

+3
Level 45
May 8, 2020
I would have said Urumqi was Central Asia
+1
Level 57
Jul 26, 2020
So true, I was confused myself
+2
Level 35
Jun 11, 2020
alternative title: how many cities in china and india can you name? /j
+1
Level 59
Jun 17, 2020
DIHUA?
+1
Level 56
Aug 9, 2020
I am pretty sure that you are wrong about Edmonton having 1.3 million people. As far as I know, Canada only has 3 cities with over 1 million; Toronto, Montreal, and Calgary (Where I live.)
+5
Level 59
Aug 13, 2020
urban area
+1
Level 59
Dec 18, 2020
how did i forget New York and Osaka and tokyo? those were so obvious
+1
Level 39
Jul 18, 2022
It’s ok I forgot Osaka and Istanbul and New Delhi
+1
Level 44
Dec 19, 2020
I'm well impressed I got Ürümqi
+1
Level 42
Dec 29, 2020
How did I get Xiamen but miss Shanghai?
+1
Level 94
Feb 25, 2021
Great quiz- easy to do after having spent a bunch of times doing the biggest cities by continent and letter quiz!
+1
Level 65
Feb 25, 2021
Year after year a new Asian city is getting a new letter from this quiz.
+3
Level 89
Feb 25, 2021
If Hawaii is considered as part of Oceania on official quizzes, then how is Ürümqi a part of East Asia?
+1
Level 59
Mar 5, 2021
I assume it's because it is in China, despite how far West it is.
+1
Level 60
May 8, 2023
And Hawaii is in the United States, despite how far West it is.
+7
Level 71
Feb 26, 2021
With Wuhan overtaking Washington, DC, Canada now has more representation on this quiz than the United States.
+2
Level 59
Mar 5, 2021
Ho Chi Minh City has more people than Hyderabad now. Is it not included for a reason (because it's also called Saigon) or was it just missed during the update?
+1
Level ∞
Mar 5, 2021
My mistake, now fixed.
+1
Level 65
Mar 10, 2021
99/100, only missed Zhengzhou (China), worst thing is that I have actually been there before and even spent the night...

Perhaps I missed it because 'zh' in standard Mandarin is pronounced similarly to 'j' in English.

+1
Level 56
Mar 12, 2021
That was my only miss too. I felt quite bad, since I I went chronologically through everything and just did not come up with Zhengzhou :s
+1
Level 60
May 8, 2023
Out of 100? You're on a whole different level.
+2
Level 52
Mar 12, 2021
Why did I think H was Hanoi?
+1
Level 65
Feb 22, 2024
Because it's another large urban area in SE Asia?
+2
Level 71
Mar 12, 2021
My mind also went for Hanoi.

I don't like calling Saigon "Ho Chi Minh". he was a bad guy and should not have this great city named after him. I'm glad JetPunk accepts Saigon for HCMC.

+4
Level 82
Mar 14, 2021
Two Canadian cities sneak on here by naming themselves with unpopular initial letters...
+1
Level 41
Mar 22, 2021
Amazing quiz
+1
Level 64
Apr 8, 2021
Urumqi but not Guangzhou
+2
Level 54
Aug 19, 2021
I'm Canadian and typed in Edmonton as a joke and it actually worked...
+1
Level 44
Nov 22, 2021
I missed Paris ._.
+1
Level 65
Jan 13, 2022
Thought I was getting them all. Then I hit Z. Chinese cities are all way too similar to remember, and so many. I tried Zhenzhen, Zhenzhao, Zhaozhang, Zhenzhou...
+1
Level 80
Mar 23, 2022
The spelling of chinese cities is my achilles heel. I was certain it was Zhangzhou
+1
Level 65
Feb 22, 2024
That's actually a separate city near Xiamen
+2
Level 55
Mar 23, 2022
It's amazing how Canada has two cities on this quiz.
+1
Level 28
Jun 16, 2022
got zhenzhou, forgot rio and shanghai
+3
Level 78
Oct 3, 2022
Claiming Urumqi is in East Asia misled me. Even if it's part of China, I don't think it's a suitable definition when one wants to define the location of the city.
+2
Level 82
Nov 8, 2022
Why not?
+1
Level 60
Aug 28, 2023
Urumqi is in Central Asia, even if it's part of China. Similar to Hawaii being Oceanic, not North American.
+1
Level 65
Feb 22, 2024
It is very clearly located in CA and not EA
+3
Level 28
Nov 24, 2022
How can vancouver with 3 million and edmonton with 2 million population be here but not london with 8 million?
+1
Level 65
Feb 22, 2024
Because Lagos
+2
Level 33
Dec 7, 2022
This quiz is so easy for chinese people. I can almost guess out every asian city 青岛 北京 上海 乌鲁木齐 郑州 福州 武汉 厦门 广州 all of these are cities in china lmao
+2
Level 70
Mar 8, 2023
The population of Fuzhou is a typo surely? 4.55 million would make a lot more sense than 45.5 especially considering that Fujian (the province Fuzhou is in) apparently has a population of 38.56 million and also contains Xiamen.
+2
Level ∞
Mar 8, 2023
Yes, fixed.
+3
Level 55
May 8, 2023
Ürümchi is a city in Central Asia!

Not in East Asia like the majority.

+1
Level 75
May 8, 2023
It is central Asia, but that would probably confuse people since all the other Chinese cities are listed as east Asia.
+1
Level 60
Aug 28, 2023
Just because it's confusing doesn't mean we should modify the truth.
+1
Level 47
May 8, 2023
i didnt get tokyo this is so embarrassing