Megacities

Today we are learning about Megacities in English class. A megacity is a city with a population of at least 10 million. In our English book "Worldwide" there is a text called "Megacities", where it says that the urban population is increasing a lot, while the rural population is decreasing. This means that people all over the world are moving from the country and into the cities. This is a global challenge that we have to deal with in the future.

In our English book there are also some statistics. The first one tells us about growth of the urban population. It says that in year 1800 there were only 2 % that moved to cities. But this number rose quickly. Already in 1950 there were 30% moving to the cities. The number still kept increasing, and in 2000 there were 47% moving from the country and into the cities. The statistics also predicts that in 2030 there will be 60% moving into urban areas.

The next diagram tells us about population in regions of the world in millions. It says that Asia is the region with the largest population in the world. In 1995 there were 2249 million living in rural areas and 1180 million living in urban areas in Asia. Africa is the other region in the world where the rural population is larger than the urban population. Europe, South America and North America all have a larger urban population than the rural population.

Finally, there is a list which tells us how many people lives in different megacities all over the world. On top is Tokyo (Japan) with 33,4 million. Number two is New York (USA) with 24,1 million and then comes Mexico City (Mexico) with 21,7 million. The next megacities on the list are Seoul (South Korea) Sao Paulo (Brazil) and Los Angeles (USA). All these statistics are from 2006.
I made a diagram of the list, which you can see here:

The picture is of New York and I got it here