November 24, 2025 | 12:02 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Indonesian capital, Jakarta, has become the world's most populous capital city with 42 million residents, according to the latest United Nations (UN) report, released on Sunday, as reported by Anadolu. This has overtaken the Japanese capital, Tokyo, which was previously the world's most populous capital.
Jakarta is now the world's most populous city, with nearly 42 million residents, followed by Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka, with nearly 40 million residents, and Japan's capital, Tokyo, with 33 million residents.
Indonesia's current population is 286 million, according to the latest UN data breakdown from Worldometer, with the Southeast Asian nation ranking fourth on the list of countries (and dependencies) by population.
According to a study, Jakarta's population density has reached 22,000 people per square kilometer. This population density also leads to high traffic congestion, which leads to poor air quality due to pollution.
Urbanization is a major driver of Jakarta's high population. The birth rate in Jakarta is reportedly quite low, while the death rate is almost the same as in other regions.
In addition to facing overpopulation issues, Jakarta is also facing the consequences of climate change. Many residents living in densely populated areas experience periodic flooding due to land subsidence caused by uncontrolled groundwater use and extreme rainfall caused by climate change.
In 2019, Indonesia announced it would move its capital to Nusantara (IKN), a new city currently under construction. The US$32 billion (approximately Rp534.2 trillion) project, initially scheduled for inauguration in 2024, is now planned to become the "political capital" in 2028. However, it remains uncertain whether the new capital will solve Jakarta's problems.
The world is experiencing rapid urbanization, with cities now home to 45 percent of the global population of 8.2 billion, according to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs' World Urbanization Prospects 2025 report.
Since 1950, when only 20 percent of the world's 2.5 billion people lived in cities, the urban population has more than doubled. By 2050, it is projected that two-thirds of global population growth will occur in cities, with the remaining third in small towns.
The number of megacities, urban areas with 10 million or more inhabitants, has quadrupled from eight in 1975 to 33 in 2025. More than half of these, 19 cities, are in Asia.
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