This 2050 Population Projection Shows How the United States Is Falling Behind the Rest of the World

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Make no mistake, the biggest urban centers in the U.S. house millions of people and always will. After all, the Census Bureau population ticker shows the United States is constantly adding to the population. But according to the population projection from the University of Toronto, pretty soon you’ll need a passport to visit the world’s biggest cities. The Earth’s population is shifting, and by 2050 the United States will have just one of the 20 largest cities in the world.

First, we’ll show the obvious U.S. city that remains in the top-10 globally in the 2050 population projection. Then we’ll discuss the other nine largest in the U.S. before revealing the biggest the world’s biggest urban areas in 2050. Before that, though, let’s quickly explain some of the methodologies.

How the population projection was calculated

They took several variables into account. | Dovapi/iStock/Getty Images

Researchers at the Global Cities Institute at the University of Toronto relied on several sources, including the World Urbanization Prospects by the United Nations. The study also factored in fertility, mortality, and educational attainment, along with current city size, country population growth, and urbanization rates. The researchers used several mathematical models and arrived at different figures. We’re basing our list on the World Urbanization Prospects extrapolations shown in the data.

Next: The U.S. city leading the way in the population projection isn’t shocking.