The Largest Cities in History – And What Comes Next

Around the year 1 CE , Rome was the biggest city on earth with the population of just about a million people.

By 500 CE, three other cities were now in the running, Constantinople, the successor to Rome , John Kong , the city that later became Nanjing , and Luo Yang .

Baghdad stayed in this top position for at least 300 years , roughly the same amount of time Rome was on top.

In China , the Southern Song Dynasty shifted their capital to Hangzhou in 1132 , and after Baghdad was invaded, this replaced it as biggest city in the world.

Tokyo remains the world's largest city, with 36 million inhabitants in an area of only 2000 square kilometers .

The world has been urbanizing like never before, and cities that have been minuscule on the world stage for so long have exploded in population.

By 2025 , Tokyo is expected to hold on to the title, but we can see three new Indian cities making it to the top ten .

By 2075 , Africa 's total population is expected to reach over 3 point5 billion people, roughly three times what it is today .

Four of the top ten largest cities are predicted to be in Africa , with Lagos , Nigeria ahead of the rest.

The biggest of them all is projected to be Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo .