History Main / MegaCity

%%* ''VideoGame/GuildWars Factions'': Kaineng City.

* There are about as many people in UsefulNotes/{{Tokyo}} and neighboring cities as there are people in [[CanadaEh Canada]], which makes the TokyoIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse trope feel juuuuust a little bit {{Justified|Trope}}. If Tokyo were a separate country, it would be the 34th most populous in the world, after UsefulNotes/{{Poland}}.

* UsefulNotes/Manila's situation is zig-zagged: while the city proper (Manila itself and the city that contains at least the presidential residence) has at least 1.8 million people, the other cities comprising the region makes the Metro Manila area, called the National Capital Region, are enough for the area to be considered into this trope, with at least 13 million for the region and 24 million if the surrounding suburbs outside the National Capital Region were added. Basically its population are at this point in 2024, is as large as Taiwan's.

* ''Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine'': ''The Betrothal of Sontar'' shows that the planet Sontar has continents covered by cities.

* ''Literature/MythAdventures'': The dimension of Deeva is entirely taken up by an open-air market.

* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' has the City of Ravnica, a city that spans an entire plane of existence. While the precise size of Ravnica is never explicitly stated it is at least the size of a small continent.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'': Axis, the LawfulNeutral Outer Plane, is the embodiment of all that a city is and should be and takes the form of a sprawling metropolis larger than any mortal settlement. It's divided into hundreds of smaller, self-governing districts, each of which is itself the size of a large mortal city.

* ''Literature/OnTheEdgeOfEureka'' has Eleutheria, a metropolis so large it covers the planet.

* ''Franchise/StarWars'': The capital city of the galaxy, Coruscant, has overtaken the entire planet including the oceans. The buildings extend down for miles and where the city ends and the natural ground begins is no longer clear.

* ''VideoGame/FZero'': Mute City, formerly called New York City (according to the anime), has grown to a population of over two billion people and aliens.

** The UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco Bay Area (in California), depending on where exactly you draw the boundaries, comprises up to 8.5 million people and is potentially the 5th-largest metropolis in the United States -- after the Los Angeles area -- with a steadily growing population from immigration into the region. It's a well-networked mesh of cities, suburbs, and large towns that surround the SF Bay, and continue to extend outward from there. Notably, San Francisco proper has remained stagnant over the years with a population hovering around 800,000 due to being the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula and not having much undeveloped land left, while other cities continue to grow -- San Jose is the largest city in Northern California and continues to grow to 1,000,000 and beyond due to sitting on about 180 square miles of land, a good chunk of which is still undeveloped, as opposed to SF's 46 square miles (often appromixated colloquially as "7 x 7").

** The UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco Bay Area (in California), depending on where exactly you draw the boundaries, comprises up to 8.5 million people and is potentially the 5th-largest metropolis in the United States -- after the Los Angeles area -- with a steadily growing population from immigration into the region. It's a well-networked mesh of cities, suburbs, and large towns that surround the SF Bay, and continue to extend outward from there. Notably, San Francisco proper has remained stagnant over the years with a population hovering around 800,000 due to being pinned down by the San Francisco Bay and the cities south of it and not having much undeveloped land left, while other cities continue to grow -- San Jose is the largest city in Northern California and continues to grow to 1,000,000 and beyond due to sitting on about 180 square miles of land, a good chunk of which is still undeveloped, as opposed to SF's 46 square miles (often appromixated colloquially as "7 x 7").

** The UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco Bay Area (in California), depending on where exactly you draw the boundaries, comprises up to 8.5 million people and is potentially the 5th-largest metropolis in the United States -- after the Los Angeles area -- with a steadily growing population from immigration into the region. It's a well-networked mesh of cities, suburbs, and large towns that surround the SF Bay, and continue to extend outward from there. Notably, San Francisco proper has remained stagnant over the years with a population hocering around 800,000 due to being pinned down by the San Francisco Bay and the cities south of it, while other cities continue to grow -- San Jose is the largest city in Northern California and continues to grow to 1,000,000 and beyond due to sitting on about 180 square miles of land, a good chunk of which is still undeveloped, as opposed to SF's 46 square miles (often appromixated colloquially as "7 x 7").

** The UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco Bay Area (in California), depending on where exactly you draw the boundaries, comprises up to 8.5 million people and is potentially the 5th-largest metropolis in the United States -- after the Los Angeles area -- with a steadily growing population from immigration into the region. It's a well-networked mesh of cities, suburbs, and large towns that surround the SF Bay, and continue to extend outward from there. Notably, San Francisco proper has remained stagnant over the years due to being pinned down by the San Francisco Bay and the cities south of it, while other cities continue to grow -- San Jose is the largest city in Northern California and continues to grow due to sitting on about 180 square miles of land, a good chunk of which is still undeveloped, as opposed to SF's 46 square miles (often appromixated colloquially as "7 x 7").

** The UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco Bay Area (in California), depending on where exactly you draw the boundaries, comprises up to 8.5 million people and is potentially the 5th-largest metropolis in the United States -- after the Los Angeles area -- with a steadily growing population from immigration into the region. It's a well-networked mesh of cities, suburbs, and large towns that surround the SF Bay, and continue to extend outward from there. Notably, San Francisco proper has remained stagnant over the years due to being pinned down by the San Francisco Bay and the cities south of it, while other cities continue to grow -- San Jose is the largest city in Northern California and continues to grow due to sitting on about 180 square miles of land, a notable minority of which is still undeveloped.

** The UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco Bay Area (in California), depending on where exactly you draw the boundaries, comprises up to 8.5 million people and is potentially the 5th-largest metropolis in the United States -- after the Los Angeles area -- with a steadily growing population from immigration into the region. It's a well-networked mesh of cities, suburbs, and large towns that surround the SF Bay, and continue to extend outward from there.

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': Many Imperial worlds are dominated by "hive cities", mountains of metal housing millions (if not billions) of inhabitants and dependent on imported food and water from neighboring {{Agri World}}s. They tend to be highly stratified societies, with the administrators and wealthiest citizens living comfortably in the Spire, while gangs, mutants, and worse struggle to survive in the dark and decaying Underhive. Many of the Imperium's officially-designated {{City Planet}}s aren't actually covered entirely by urbanization, but are rather dotted with hive cities separated by the resulting {{Polluted Wasteland}}s.

* The metropolitan area of Jakarta, the capital of UsefulNotes/{{Indonesia}}, houses 30 million people, slightly less than the total population of the country's neighboring ArchEnemy, UsefulNotes/{{Malaysia}} (32 million). And you can't dismiss Malaysia as a small country either; 127,724 square miles, compared to Metro Jakarta's 6,615 square miles. Were it a country in its own right, it would be the 45th most populous in the world.

*** "World's biggest by land area" Hulunbuir, Inner Mongolia is even larger than the entire UK. This city-prefecture contains several counties and other cities (as the norm); the real city proper (Hailar District) occupies 0.5% of the total land, and is not big by Chinese standards.

A city whose population and physical size are massive, not just in raw numbers but in density. The actual size can depend on the average city size of the setting, but for modern or sci-fi settings, you can assume that the number of citizens goes into the hundreds of millions or even billions.

Depending on the setting you can expect to see a lot of tall buildings, endless suburbs and futuristic ways to get around. If you are lucky to get an author who is good at {{worldbuilding}}, they may have even thought of how the megacity challenges with providing food and water for all the inhabitants as well as how to handle the problems for the environment (human waste, garbage and pollution) so many people naturally generate. If you are unlucky however, the author may depict unrealistic situations, like the heroes finding themselves alone in public at times and places where that should be impossible given the population density.

* ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd'': The world is divided into these kind of cities. Much of the world outside the Mega Cities was destroyed in the Atomic War of 2070, leaving the metropoles as the last centers of advanced civilization due to their missile shields having withstood the worst nuclear attacks. Dredd's home city of Mega City One grew from [=BosWash=] until it covered the entire eastern seaboard. In fact, the whole point of the Apocalypse War arc was to trim its sheer size down, as it had become too big.

* ''Literature/TheThirteenAndAHalfLivesOfCaptainBluebear'': The Capital of the continent of Zamonia, Atlantis, has over 200 million inhabitants.

* The metropolitan area of Jakarta, the capital of UsefulNotes/{{Indonesia}}, houses 30 million people, slightly less than the total population of the country's neighboring ArchEnemy, UsefulNotes/{{Malaysia}} (32 million). And you can't dismiss Malaysia as a small country either; 127,724 mi2, compared to Metro Jakarta's 6,615 mi2. Were it a country of its own right, it would be the 45th most populous in the world.

** Speaking of Canada, the Greater Toronto Area (which includes the City of UsefulNotes/{{Toronto}} as well as several other nearby towns and cities of varying sizes) contains over 6 million people and occupies an area of over 7,000 square kilometres. This alone represents about one sixth of the entire population of Canada. With that said, it falls short of the usual definition of a mega city as a metropolitan area with more than 10 million people.

* Although it may not seem like much compared to other entries in this list, UsefulNotes/{{London}} was probably the first modern metropolis with a population of 6.7 million in the 1900s. It is still one and the largest among European cities, with 14 million people living in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_commuter_belt London commuter belt]] which includes the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_London Greater London]] area. Said population is also relatively low for the amount of space that London occupies because the city has a relatively small number of true skyscrapers: The ground is so marshy that for most of the city's history it was cheaper and easier to build ''out'' rather than ''up''.
* Speaking of European cities, UsefulNotes/{{Paris}} and the surrounding [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Île-de-France Île-de-France region]] also counts. 12 million or approximately one fifth of the French population lives in the region, making it the fourth largest metropolitan area within Europe.
* By some definitions, the "Blue Banana", also known as the "European Megalopolis" is a single interliked megalopolis which stretches from Liverpool in north-west England to Milan in Italy. The estimated population is over 110 million people, or around a fifth of the entire continent. Which rather puts Moscow's claims to shame...

*** "World's most populous" Chongqing Municipality is a merger of 4 former prefectures, has a population of 29 million, and is larger than Scotland. The real city proper of Chongqiong has 8 million residents.