300,000 New Arrivals Every Year
🏙️ 300,000 New Arrivals Every Year
She is one of approximately 300,000 people who move to Dhaka every single year. That is the equivalent of a city the size of Coventry arriving in Dhaka in twelve months. Add them year after year, decade after decade, and you have one of the most extraordinary human stories of our time: the rise of the megacity.
In 1950, there were just two cities on Earth with more than 10 million inhabitants — New York and Tokyo. By 2024 there were 37 of them, home to more than half a billion people. Almost all of that growth happened not in the wealthy countries of Europe and North America, but in the rapidly urbanising nations of Africa and Asia. Understanding why megacities grow, what problems they create, and how those problems can be managed is one of the central challenges of 21st-century geography — and one of the most reliably examined topics in your GCSE.
Geography glossary
- What does urban sustainability mean?
- Improving city life without creating bigger future social, economic or environmental problems.
A megacity is a city with a population of more than 10 million people. The term was first widely used in the 1970s, when planners began to recognise that cities of this scale created challenges that smaller urban areas simply did not face. A city of 500,000 needs a bus network and a water supply. A city of 22 million n
Earn the mark scheme marks
🧠 Memory Aid: TRAFFIC
Use the acronym TRAFFIC to remember the key challenges facing megacities. Each letter gives you a topic to write about in an exam answer:
For case study data, use this quick memory frame:
Now try it yourself
Quiz · Question 1 of 17
What is the minimum population required for a city to be classified as a megacity?
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This topic in real past papers
Every real exam question we've found on urban sustainability and megacities, with a full worked answer.
AQA Paper 2
Take the raw figures given in a table and calculate the mean, median or interquartile range, showing enough working to earn the method mark even if the final answer slips.
AQA Paper 2
Take a chart that is already mostly drawn and add the one missing bar or symbol using the value you are given.
AQA Paper 2
Look at a map or choropleth and describe the pattern it shows, naming real places or regions from the source, not just a vague impression.
AQA Paper 2
Explain or assess an urban process or strategy, using a resource plus your own understanding, developing your points rather than just listing them.
AQA Paper 2
Bring together detailed, precise knowledge of a named city with a reasoned judgement, always closing Section A and always the only question on the whole paper marked for SPaG.