Recently, news of Indonesia’s latest international record reached Indonesia: Jakarta was crowned the world’s largest city, surpassing Tokyo, Japan, which previously held the record. This sparked debate and discussion about Indonesia’s urbanization and population growth.
Context of the Claim
On November 18, 2025, the United Nations published its World Urbanization Report 2025, reporting on global urban growth and urbanization. One highlight of the report was how Jakarta had overtaken Tokyo as the world’s largest city, followed by Dhaka in second place. This marked a significant increase, as the last time the UN conducted this survey, in 2018, Tokyo was in first place while Jakarta was in thirty-third place. This news quickly made headlines in Indonesia and was widely shared on social media. The Facebook page, Fakta Unik Dunia (Unique World Facts), for example, published an image with a large caption titled “Jakarta Overtakes Tokyo as the World’s Largest City,” which received 1.5 thousand likes and 375 comments.
Fact Check
In fact, it’s true that, according to the World Urbanization Report 2025, Jakarta has achieved the top spot as the world’s largest city. However, this is not due to Jakarta’s population growth, but rather to a change in the UN’s survey method. Previously, the UN measured a city’s size by its own population.
This year, the UN is counting not only the population of a city but also what are known as “satellite cities,” which are small towns whose residents are heavily dependent on the metropolitan area, especially economically. In this context, the UN is not only counting the population of Jakarta but also cities within Jakarta’s economic orbit, such as Bekasi and Depok, or more commonly known as Greater Jakarta (Jabodetabek).
If the UN only counts the populations of Jakarta and Tokyo, Tokyo, with around 14 million people, still outnumbers Jakarta, with around 10 million. However, Greater Jakarta’s population of 42 million is higher than the Tokyo metropolitan area’s population of 38 million. The UN itself stated in its report that the change in survey methods was made to more accurately measure urbanization levels and assist the government in formulating policies related to economic growth and public transportation.
Conclusion
The claim that Jakarta has become Indonesia’s largest city is true, but further context is needed to demonstrate that this is due to a change in the UN’s survey methods rather than Jakarta’s population growth. A more accurate claim is that the Greater Jakarta area has overtaken the Tokyo Metropolitan Area as the world’s largest metropolitan area. Therefore, in fact-meter terms, this claim falls into the “Half-Light” category, meaning that it is largely true but lacks additional context.
