[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"question:79:en-US":3},{"metadata":4,"sys":15,"fields":35},{"tags":5,"concepts":14},[6,11],{"sys":7},{"type":8,"linkType":9,"id":10},"Link","Tag","global",{"sys":12},{"type":8,"linkType":9,"id":13},"sustainableCities",[],{"space":16,"id":20,"type":21,"createdAt":22,"updatedAt":23,"environment":24,"publishedVersion":28,"revision":29,"contentType":30,"locale":34},{"sys":17},{"type":8,"linkType":18,"id":19},"Space","ghhpjogyw4x7","3a970c6a841e9c6f70286990c2f36931","Entry","2021-11-11T07:10:22.276Z","2026-02-26T10:16:18.187Z",{"sys":25},{"id":26,"type":8,"linkType":27},"master","Environment",64,25,{"sys":31},{"type":8,"linkType":32,"id":33},"ContentType","question","en-US",{"globalId":36,"answers":37,"answersAsImages":58,"wrongPercentage":94,"name":95,"questionText":96,"statistics":97,"veryWrongStatistics":99,"correctSentence":101,"youWereWrong":102,"youWereRight":103,"dataSourceShortText":104,"dataSourceLinkLongText":105,"extendedAnswerText":106,"headingVeryWrong":107,"youWereVeryWrong":102,"headingWrong":107},"79",[38,60,77],{"metadata":39,"sys":42,"fields":55},{"tags":40,"concepts":41},[],[],{"space":43,"id":45,"type":21,"createdAt":46,"updatedAt":47,"environment":48,"publishedVersion":50,"revision":51,"contentType":52,"locale":34},{"sys":44},{"type":8,"linkType":18,"id":19},"b10c9d76511789018c508ce8bea04063","2021-11-11T06:55:48.073Z","2025-12-08T09:37:32.636Z",{"sys":49},{"id":26,"type":8,"linkType":27},24,19,{"sys":53},{"type":8,"linkType":32,"id":54},"answer",{"globalId":56,"correctAnswer":57,"isVeryWrong":58,"answerText":59},"79-a1",true,false,"Around 8%",{"metadata":61,"sys":64,"fields":74},{"tags":62,"concepts":63},[],[],{"space":65,"id":67,"type":21,"createdAt":68,"updatedAt":69,"environment":70,"publishedVersion":50,"revision":51,"contentType":72,"locale":34},{"sys":66},{"type":8,"linkType":18,"id":19},"1302368ef993b60d350eaf97c48e64bf","2021-11-11T06:55:49.708Z","2025-12-08T09:37:41.071Z",{"sys":71},{"id":26,"type":8,"linkType":27},{"sys":73},{"type":8,"linkType":32,"id":54},{"globalId":75,"correctAnswer":58,"isVeryWrong":58,"answerText":76},"79-a2","Around 38%",{"metadata":78,"sys":81,"fields":91},{"tags":79,"concepts":80},[],[],{"space":82,"id":84,"type":21,"createdAt":85,"updatedAt":86,"environment":87,"publishedVersion":50,"revision":51,"contentType":89,"locale":34},{"sys":83},{"type":8,"linkType":18,"id":19},"0f5e681e2c2eccf05e2c7e66cf9d58d1","2021-11-11T06:55:51.491Z","2025-12-08T09:37:48.080Z",{"sys":88},{"id":26,"type":8,"linkType":27},{"sys":90},{"type":8,"linkType":32,"id":54},{"globalId":92,"correctAnswer":58,"isVeryWrong":57,"answerText":93},"79-a3","Around 68%",82,"Future Megacity population","Megacities are cities with more than 10 million inhabitants. What share of the world's population is expected to live in megacities in 2050?",[98],"uk 0.82",[100],"uk 0.28","UN experts say 8% of people will be living in megacities by 2050.","Megacities look great in movies and they’re also where lots of journalists and entertainment producers live. But in 2050, most people will live in smaller cities, just like today.","Most people wrongly believe most people will live in giant cities in 25 years time.","Source:  UN - World Urbanization Prospects 2025","These numbers are projections, so of course they can’t be considered perfect. Things may change in the coming years, but it is unlikely that in the next decade tens of millions of people will move from smaller cities to big ones. According to the UN in 2025, around 7.6% of the world's 8 billion population lived in the 33 megacities.\n\nThe UN estimate could potentially be a bit too low, as there is no international standard for defining city boundaries when counting citizens. If the more generous methods that include sparsely populated outskirts were used everywhere, then a few more cities would maybe qualify as megacities. Despite that legitimate concern, most cities are not even close to 10 million people. The UN projects that the number of megacities will grow from 34 to 37 by 2050, but the people living in them will still only make up 7.9% of the global population. \n\nBecause of the uncertainty of projections, we put huge differences between the three answer options safe in the knowledge that the two wrong answers couldn’t possibly be correct unless there is an unprecedented migration of billions of people from small cities to large cities in the next 10 years.\n\n[1]  [UN - World Urbanization Prospects 2025](https:\u002F\u002Fpopulation.un.org\u002Fwup\u002Fassets\u002FPublications\u002Fundesa_pd_2025_wup2025_summary_of_results_final.pdf)  \n[2]  [UN - The World’s Cities in 2018](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.un.org\u002Fen\u002Fevents\u002Fcitiesday\u002Fassets\u002Fpdf\u002Fthe_worlds_cities_in_2018_data_booklet.pdf)  ","Today, only 8% of the world’s population live in megacities, but many people think it's a lot more. It’s probably because megacities like New York, London and Beijing get a disproportionate amount of attention in the media. \n\nWe know half of people live in urban areas and we know the urban population keeps growing. We mistakenly believe that the biggest cities are the only ones that will grow. They will grow too, but they represent a minority of cities. Most cities are much smaller. So, even if the share of people living in megacities will grow in the future, it's much more modest than people assume. Most of the growth in the population will happen in smaller cities. \n\nWhen we picture how cities will look in the future, it is often like something out of a science fiction movie. Realistically life in 2050 will likely be very similar today.\n\n### Why is it a problem that people are wrong about this?\nIn many ways, it’s easier to create a sustainable lifestyle in a city, compared to remote rural areas, where scalable solutions for many citizens are difficult to create. Cities often have better education, health care, public transport, sewage, more effective energy use, etc. But the discussion about future urbanization tends to focus too much on the megacities, probably because they seem so futuristic. But their needs are not typical for most cities. Most cities are smaller, with access to nature close by. They have more to learn from similar sized cities in other parts of the world. They need regular sized waste management and transport systems. \n\n### Why are people wrong about this?\nWe are bombarded with movies, TV shows and images in the news of huge metropolises. They seem like the center of the world because that is where the journalists and movie makers live. Unsurprisingly, people think that is where lots of other people live. \n\n### Can I trust the data?\nYes, but you should always take future numbers with a grain of salt, as they are forecasts and they are never perfect. The UN number mixes data from countries that use different criteria to determine where the boundary of a city is. If the more generous methods that include sparsely populated outskirts were used everywhere, then a few more cities would maybe qualify as megacities, which could be a reason to think that the UN estimate may potentially be a bit too low. But even with the more generous way of counting city outskirts, the megacity population in 2050 will not be higher than 10% of the world population.\n\n### Find out more\nTake a look at [Gapminder tools](https:\u002F\u002Fwww.gapminder.org\u002Ftools\u002F#$model$markers$bubble$encoding$y$data$concept=cities_w_more_10m_p&source=fasttrack&space@=country&=time;;&scale$domain:null&zoomed:null&type:null;;;;;;&chart-type=bubbles&url=v1)  where you can see the number of people living in cities with more than 10 million people in different countries.\n","Most will live in smaller cities"]