The world’s most crowded city is… Dhaka.
Rural populations are being displaced by climate change from all over Bangladesh, and they’re arriving in Dhaka in search of jobs and opportunities.
This isn’t unique to Bangladesh, though. You’ll find this pattern in any country with a large rural population and one major metro area.
So why is Dhaka in particular so crowded?
A lot of it is a byproduct of geography. Dhaka is boxed in by the city’s rivers. On top of that, the world’s fastest growing countries all have significantly more space than Bangladesh, the only smaller-sized nation in the top ten of population growth.
Dhaka grows faster than the city can keep up with. This leads to infrastructure that struggles to accommodate everyone and the city feeling even fuller than it is.