Population of the Metro Tokyo Area Compared To US Cities

Map created by Max Galka via Metrocosm

According to the UN, Tokyo is the world’s most populous metropolitan area with an estimated 37.8 million people in 2014. The next closest is the Seoul National Capital Area with a population of 25.6 million people or over 10 million fewer than Tokyo!

So how does this compare to US cities?

The map does a good job of demonstrating how many US cities you’d need to equal one Tokyo. Before continuing it should be noted that the map is comparing apples to oranges. It’s comparing the Greater Tokyo Metro Area to US cities boundaries (not metro areas!).

Still, its crazy to think that the same number of people live in Greater Tokyo as live within the city boundaries of the following US cities ranked by population:

New York – 8,491,079
Los Angeles – 3,928,864
Chicago – 2,695,598
Houston – 2,099,451
Philadelphia – 1,560,297
Phoenix – 1,445,632
San Antonio – 1,436,697
San Diego – 1,381,069
Dallas – 1,197,816
San Jose – 1,015,785
Austin – 912,791
San Francisco – 852,469
Indianapolis – 820,445
Charlotte – 809,958
Washington D.C. – 658,893
Boston – 655,884
Memphis – 646,889
Baltimore – 620,961
Denver – 600,158
Las Vegas – 583,756
Sacramento – 466,488
Kansas City (Missouri) – 459,787
Atlanta – 447,841
Miami – 399,457
Cleveland – 396,815
Honolulu – 390,738
New Orleans – 384,320
Durham – 245,550
Orlando – 238,300
Salt Lake City – 186,440
Providence – 178,042
New Haven – 130,741
Boulder – 97,385

And altogether they total only 36,436,396 people or still 1.4 million fewer than Tokyo. To put it another way, Tokyo has about the same population as California, in an area the size of LA county.

Tokyo vs California population