2010 UN Urban Agglomeration estimates (state, largest, places, population)

[PDX_LAX]

"The term “urban agglomeration” refers to the population contained within the contours of a contiguous territory inhabited at urban density levels without regard to administrative boundaries or commuter flows."

U.S. Rank - City - Population - World Rank

1. New York-Newark - 19,425,000 - 6
2. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana - 12,762,000 - 12
3. Chicago - 9,204,000 - 25
4. Miami - 5,750,000 - 46
5. Philadelphia - 5,626,000 - 48
6. Dallas-Fort Worth - 4,951,000 - 58
7. Atlanta - 4,691,000 - 63
8. Houston - 4,605,000 - 64
9. Boston - 4,593,000 - 65
10. Washington D.C. - 4,460,000 - 68

Interesting that Miami is by far the largest of the 4 largest southern cities using this criteria, as opposed to MSA or CSA measures. Also I find it odd that San Francisco-San Jose is not considered one agglomeration by the United Nations. Any other observations?

P.S. Tokyo is larger than New York, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C. combined

For world:

List of urban agglomerations by population (United Nations) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For United States:

http://esa.un.org/wup2009/unup/p2k0data.asp (broken link)

[kidphilly]

Yes Miami has a development pattern much more similar with the West Coast cities and the topography plays in - i believe that Miami is the only large MSA in the US where all population in the MSA is considered Urban

On the Bay area - DC/Baltimore are also not combined i believe based on the 4.5 million

Other areas also have continuous urban areas like the Bay in the DMV, LA/SD, and NYC/Trenton/Philly

Personally on size of the developed continuity I prefer the UA comparators as they seem to make more sense in terms of the size of the populated areas without pulling in population disjointed and further removed

[Chicago South Sider]

That list shows just how much ultra-low density sprawl places like Houston, Dallas and Atlanta have. Miami's numbers are impressive.

[18Montclair]

The SF Urban Agglomeration only covers 500 square miles. This is barely different from the Urbanized Area rankings of the US Census Bureau.

Basically a ranking of sprawl, or how big a city's main sprawl boundary is. This benefits cities with no geographic constraints on huge flat areas. Cities with mountains and natural barriers to contiguous sprawl lose population in these kinds of rankings.