Published in

Elsevier, Cities, 5(22), p. 365-380

DOI: 10.1016/j.cities.2005.07.001

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Population Growth in the World's Largest Cities

Journal article published in 2005 by Gordon F. Mulligan, Jason P. Crampton
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Red circle
Postprint: archiving forbidden
Red circle
Published version: archiving forbidden
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

This paper uses recent UN data to examine population growth in the world’s 485 largest cities between 1950 and 2010. Three themes guide the analysis. First, the changing population size distribution of these large cities is studied. Second, the changing global urban center of gravity is calculated and mapped. As expected, this urban centroid drifted steadily to the south and east after 1950. Third, the cities are grouped into 10 clusters, ranked from fastest growing to slowest growing, based on the similarity of their 5-year population growth rates during the 60-year study period. Some generalizations regarding size and location are given for the cities in these clusters and future trends for the world’s largest cities are briefly discussed.