I have a new not-so-serious goal. I say not-so-serious because I'm busy with lots of other things and who knows if/when I'll actually get around to this. So let's just say that this goal is based on a strong interest. I would like to visit the 10 largest urban areas in the world.
I was careful to say urban areas, because largest cities can be misleading. City proper boundaries are an arbitrary measure. What matters more are the built up areas.
I have already been to a handful of them, namely the ones centered around Tokyo, Dhaka, and Mexico City. But there are more on the list that I haven't been to.
There are, however, two immediate challenges with setting a not-so-serious goal like this one. The first is that it's not easy to come up with a definitive list of the largest urban areas. It's nuanced and, for some cities, population estimates are very much rough estimates.
The second is that population figures are constantly changing. So by the time I get around to this, many of the largest cities might be in Africa (current forecast for this century) and I may be checking off the wrong list.
But let's not let perfect be the enemy of good. Here's what I came up with. And by "what I came up with," I mean that I asked ChatGPT its opinion. This is the list I got:
