Biggest Cities with Exceptions

Most of the world's biggest cities are in Asia. Try to name the biggest cities in the world that AREN'T.

Includes cities that are transcontinental

Urban area population, according to citypopulation.de - January 2020

Two loosely-defined areas have been filled in by default

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Last updated: February 10, 2020

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First submitted	March 31, 2016
Times taken	40,385
Average score	68.8%
Rating	4.84

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Population	Urban Area
23.0 mil	Mexico City
22.4 mil	São Paulo
22.1 mil	New York City
21.0 mil	Cairo
19.4 mil	Lagos
17.7 mil	Los Angeles
17.3 mil	Moscow
16.4 mil	Buenos Aires
16.0 mil	Istanbul
14.8 mil	London
13.9 mil	Johannesburg
13.2 mil	Rio de Janeiro
12.4 mil	Kinshasa
11.4 mil	Paris
10.1 mil	Lima
9.75 mil	Chicago
9.60 mil	Bogotá

Population	Urban Area
8.55 mil	Washington, DC / Baltimore
8.15 mil	Luanda
7.85 mil	San Francisco
7.75 mil	Boston
7.45 mil	Toronto
7.35 mil	Philadelphia
7.25 mil	Santiago
7.20 mil	Dallas
6.75 mil	Houston
6.55 mil	Madrid
6.45 mil	Dar es Salaam
6.40 mil	Miami
6.30 mil	Khartoum
6.20 mil	Milan
5.90 mil	Nairobi
5.85 mil	Atlanta
5.80 mil	Alexandria

Population	Urban Area
5.75 mil	Detroit
5.70 mil	The Ruhr
5.65 mil	Saint Petersburg
5.60 mil	Abidjan
5.35 mil	Guadalajara
5.30 mil	Sydney
5.10 mil	Accra
5.00 mil	Belo Horizonte
5.00 mil	Cologne / Dusseldorf
5.00 mil	Monterrey
4.95 mil	Melbourne
4.78 mil	Barcelona
4.73 mil	Berlin
4.70 mil	Phoenix
4.48 mil	Casablanca
4.43 mil	Seattle

+17

Level 83

Mar 31, 2016

Forgot about Australia...

+30

Level 83

Oct 21, 2016

Forgot them again

Level 62

Apr 26, 2017

I'm amazed that two Australian cities made the list since their overall population is so low. I've never been there, but I suspect that the population is heavily compacted into the capital cities (Perth, Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne etc), with almost nobody living outside these cities.

+14

Level 74

May 8, 2017

Pretty much...around half of the population lives within 100 km of the three main centres. Despite the stereotypes, Australia is one of the most urbanised countries in the world

Level 65

Feb 26, 2020

Yea, Australia is more than 186 times larger than the Netherlands for instance, but the population comes pretty close, only 1,4 times larger.

Level 65

Feb 26, 2020

If you go just by land area Australia is actually 225 times bigger. If Australia would have the same population density, they would need more than 3900 million more inhabitants than they currently have! (Yes that is the correct amount of zero's)

Level 84

Aug 1, 2016

Why can I never remember Atlanta exists? :-\

Level 82

Sep 4, 2016

I do that, and also forget about Phoenix. It's really annoying.

Level 82

Oct 12, 2016

I do that about Toronto ...

Level 52

Mar 12, 2018

Well now, at least in America, we're unforgettable. Not in a good way, though...

Level 88

Jun 26, 2018

Because it's quasi-urban at best, very, very spread out.

Level 92

Aug 1, 2016

Very fun quiz. Small typo - Belo Horizonte is showing as 1.93 instead of 4.93 which I assume is the correct figure.

Level 71

Aug 2, 2016

If you have The Ruhr already filled in, why is Cologne/Dusseldorf listed separately?

Good to learn a few of the biggest African cities that rarely make the lists (Luanda, Abidjan...)

Level 90

Aug 3, 2016

+1. I would definitely have tried Dusseldorf if not for the Ruhr already being filled in. Very misleading.

Level ∞

Aug 3, 2016

Yeah, that's confusing. I don't know why citypopulation.de doesn't include Dusseldorf in the Ruhr. But even so they are good source, and much better than the alternatives.

Level 74

Oct 25, 2016

The Ruhr is a river and the cities along the Ruhr (and Lippe) are an urban area referred to as "Ruhr-area", when Düsseldorf is included, it's usually referred to as Rhein-Ruhr, to indicate you go beyond the Ruhr-area. Hope this helps :)

Level 78

Mar 13, 2020

I've been ranting about this on other quizzes but this concept continues to confuse people from far away. The Ruhr Area and Rhine Area are very distinctive. Tell someone from Düsseldorf or Cologne that they're from the Ruhr Area and you get crazy looks. However, since they are so close to each other and actually overlap in small parts, it makes sense to combine them into the Rhine-Ruhr mega region. Düsseldorf/Cologne = Rhine-Ruhr, but never ever =Ruhr.

Level 42

Oct 21, 2016

Great quiz, surprised I forgot Phoenix (among a few others of course)

Level 48

Oct 21, 2016

Might have done better had I remembered the 17 million person metro area I used to live in.

Level 57

Oct 21, 2016

Istanbul is in Turkey (Asia).

+12

Level 84

Oct 21, 2016

Here we go

+11

Level 75

Oct 21, 2016

"Includes cities that are transcontinental" - Istanbul fits that caveat since it is in both Europe and Asia.

Level 83

Feb 11, 2020

According to the Turkish Government, more than 8 million of Istanbul's population lived on the European side in 2010, meaning even just counting the part not in Asia, it easily made this list (and it has grown considerably since then). Then of course there's the caveat about transcontinental cities.

+13

Level 47

Oct 21, 2016

33/50 I made this quiz... what on earth :(

Level 84

Oct 21, 2016

Ha! Too busy makin' 'em and not enough time takin' 'em! :-)

Level 65

Feb 26, 2020

Maybe you do better on "not on earth" ;) I agree, earth geography can be tricky :)

Level 57

Oct 21, 2016

40/50, new record for me!

Level 84

Oct 21, 2016

Nice pic of Mexico, and it was also nice that you accept just "Mexico" as a valid answer.

Level 66

Oct 21, 2016

41/50

Level 72

Oct 23, 2016

Great quiz. Could do with a bit more time though. I still had about a dozen to type in when I ran out of time and I hadn't reached the stage of 'name any remotely big/famous city and hope'.

Level 52

Mar 12, 2018

Would that have got you Casablanca?

Level ∞

Feb 10, 2020

Added one more minute

Level 43

Oct 24, 2016

Forgot Mexico City.... :\

Level 62

Dec 1, 2016

47/50 but could have done it with more time. It is amazing how many cities disappear from this list when Asia is not included!

Level 44

Feb 16, 2017

Mexico City is bigger than New York City? Didn't expect that!

Level 83

Feb 11, 2020

Depends on the source. Depending on what you consult NYC, Mexico City or Sao Paulo will be given as the largest city in the Americas. Defining metro areas is a messy business

Level 66

Jun 8, 2017

Missed one. One. I thought: start with U.S., leave Canada 'til later. Arrgh!

Level 62

May 23, 2019

Shouldn't Rome be on here?

Level ∞

Feb 10, 2020

No.

Level 56

Dec 17, 2019

47/50 and I forgot Cairo and St Petersburg, lmao

Level 83

Feb 11, 2020

>_< grrr ... after the update I only missed Alexandria. I started with Africa and even with Egypt. I think Cairo was the first one I got. I was sure I had typed it in already.

Level 71

Feb 12, 2020

Good quiz......... with 3 seconds to go I tried to type Buenos Aires ........ didn't.

Level 70

Feb 13, 2020

Would've got an extra one if I hadn't misspelt Abidjan :P

Level 50

Feb 22, 2020

Missed St. Petersburg, Alexandria, Detroit, Phoenix, and belo Horizonte. Never heard of the last one

Level 65

Mar 13, 2020

You will, as you do more quizzes on here. Last year I hadnt heard of it either.

Level 59

Mar 1, 2020

Kind of surprised that Addis Ababa isn't on here

Level 62

Mar 3, 2020

Half of Istanbul is in Asia though

Level 85

Aug 4, 2022

Nowhere near half.

Level 48

Mar 13, 2020

Seattle definitely shouldn't be on this list lol the population isn't even over 1 million let alone 4.5.

Level 65

Mar 13, 2020

Metro population, not city proper

Level 4

Mar 13, 2020

Man, really, go and solve that unjoyful pairing of Köln and Düsseldorf immediately!

No one of either city would ever build a sum of the two population figures.

The Ruhr Area, fine. Köln or Düsseldorf - no way for any of them to end up in this list.

Level 66

Mar 13, 2020

Missed my hometown. Had no idea it would be on this list.

Level 44

May 2, 2020

Istanbul is cheating!!! ;) :P

Level 85

May 11, 2023

They were all very honest with me when I was there.

Level 78

May 26, 2020

I'm an American and I missed five US cities. I'm so ashamed.

Level 56

Jun 10, 2020

very inaccurate, Sao Paulo is larger then Mexico City and how is San Francisco larger then Houston and Phoenix?

Level 56

Jun 10, 2020

Why isn't Kiev on the list?

Level 78

Jul 21, 2020

Got all but Toronto and Philadelphia! (Forgot about Canada)

Level 56

Dec 23, 2020

San Antonio by all accounts is larger than many of the cities on this list.

Level 71

Aug 14, 2021

Got all but... Berlin.

Level 70

Feb 13, 2022

Fun quiz. I basically just went through as many NFL or MLB locations as I could think, then big UEFA teams, the two from Oz and as many African places as I could think. Enjoyed this. Thank you.

Level 60

Jun 29, 2022

Noooo just one was left.. Accra?

Level 56

Dec 21, 2022

Milan has 3.25M people in the whole metropolitan area, just mthe city is 1.5M (Rome metropolitan area has 4.5M)

Level 58

Apr 12, 2023

How did I remember Abidjan, but not Miami or Philadelphia....

Level 62

Sep 14, 2023

It’s finally fun without 20 Chinese, 15 Indian and 10 South East Asian cities

Level 59

Nov 29, 2023

47/48, forgot about Atlanta... :((

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