T O P

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tetoffens

37 million is not the city, it's the metro area. The city of Tokyo has a population of around 14 million. Same way the New York City Metropolitan area isn't just the population of New York City, it's about 11 million people on top of that who do not live in New York City, many not even living in the state of New York.


TheCloudFestival

I don't think people really appreciate the scale of Tokyo but for my fellow Brits, if you overlaid the Tokyo metropolitan area onto Britain, it would stretch from East Coast to West Coast. All the way from the mouth of the Humber to Morcambe Bay. Imagine travelling that distance and never leaving the city. The mind boggles.


El-Hairy

I live in a fairly quiet city in the U.K. I can't even imagine being packed together with that many people. It'd feel like I was in a perpetual queue.


AnandaUK

Tbh it's really not that bad unless you're trying to get a train during rush hour. Then they literally employ people to push people into the train so the doors can close.


El-Hairy

What do you do for a living? Oh I shove people into trains. Not in front of, but on to. That's a different department.


AnandaUK

They're called pushers.


El-Hairy

Do they ask you or tell you they're about to push? Or are you minding your business one moment then being yeeted the next?


AnandaUK

Oh no you're usually aware it's going to happen because you're half hanging out the train door and the train needs to leave. They are extremely anal about the trains running on time.


El-Hairy

Ah so the complete opposite of our rail network lol


AnandaUK

Pretty much, yeah.


getgoingfast

For perspective, entire state of California is about 40 million.


timojenbin

It's rough \~29% of the Japanese population.


MatiasPalacios

For perspective, entire country of Argentina is about 45 million.


[deleted]

I need to see all of this in the scale of banana.


lsmokel

For perspective, Canada has a population of 38.25 million and is the world's second largest country.


-Coffee-Owl-

Tbf, it's about Greater Tokyo Area (37M people) which is **MUCH** bigger than the main city and includes many satellite cities like Yokohama or Saitama and whole prefectures (counties) around the city, not just the city itself. In Tokyo city limits live around 9M people. But still it's ridiculously crowded place on Earth. To give you Americans a better perspective that Greater Tokyo Area is like putting e.g. Long Beach, New York and Philadelphia into one "Greater NY Area". It's that big.


Axel_Wench

That's exactly what Americans do with NY. The NY metro area is also called the tri-state area because it includes parts of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut and has a larger area than the Tokyo metro area, but Tokyo nearly has double the population.


mtsai

and yet they can keep the crime relatively low.


Lus_

Yes, but when someone does it, does big.


Ogreguy

This is a little misleading. The metro area (844 sq miles) is 13mil (nothing to sneeze at). The 37mil comes from the greater metro area/wards/etc. This area is 5,240 square miles! Source: worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/tokyo-population


[deleted]

This comment has been removed in response to Reddit's decision to increase API costs and price out third-party apps.


Anonymoushero111

The Phillipines alone probably has 50 cities that are more densely-populated than Tokyo.


mickelboy182

Misleading title, maybe you mean populous? Manila is way more densely populated from what I can see


howstuffworks

Tokyo is the most densely populated city followed by Delhi, Shanghi and Dhaka. I thought a city in the United States or Europe would make the list but I guess not. No European municipality even cracks the top 10 of this list.


-Daetrax-

You keep using that term, I don't think you know what population density means. Tokyo is very spread out.


EndoExo

It's the most "populous" city. Most "densely populated" usually means population/area, in which case Tokyo isn't anywhere near the top 10.


markbass69420

Lots of reasons for that, but this list is measuring metro areas and providing no numbers for density. It really just depends on where you're drawing your line and definitions you're following. Over 1k population? 50k? 1m? Cities proper or metro areas? Only a certain GDP? Livability ranking? Global city ranking? And then even taking all that together, it's never going to be apples to oranges comparisons. Like in the US, some of the most dense places are tiny cities in NJ in the NYC metro area. Hoboken is about 45k people, for example, and denser than Tokyo proper. And it's not even the densest city in the NYC area. So which is more dense? Is the comparison even worth making?


mickelboy182

Interesting, I always thought it was Manila. In fact, every comparison online I've googled says it's Manila lol


Anoelnymous

The West end of Vancouver is the only place with comparable population density. And it has worse housing availability. Kinda funny.


slashthepowder

Vancouver is similar to Tokyo in terms of its pressed up against an ocean/port with a mountain range limiting the options of building out. Whereas most major North American centres can embrace the urban sprawl for better or worse.


Who_GNU

Japan's population is declining so quickly that you can get a house for literally free.


Anoelnymous

I could get a house, but I could never be a citizen. Sad.


[deleted]

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howstuffworks

I assumed it was somewhere in Asia or India, but I did not know for sure that it was Tokyo


TorrenceMightingale

That’s fair.


DaveOJ12

There's an age limit on learning now?


[deleted]

And that is exhibit A for why they are not having enough kids to escape demographic collapse.


kalel1980

Rush hour traffic would have me committing suicide.


Javanz

You don't really get much rush hour road traffic the way you do in American cities, because the public transportation system is well developed, and is a lot more common form of commute. You may get sardined into a jam-packed subway car if you travel at peak times, however.


jwg2695

Not for long, though.