Accommodating 22,478,116 people, Dhaka stands fourth among the most densely populated cities worldwide, says a new study.
With a whopping population of 37,274,000, Japan's Tokyo tops the list recently revealed by WorldAtlas, an online geography resource.
“Like Mumbai, the population density of this city has it nearly bursting at the seams, and yet, the rapidly growing metropolitan shows no signs of slowing,” the website says.
This creates a fascinating, high-energy environment but also poor living conditions for many residents, heavy traffic for all, and an overall challenge of sustainability for the government, it adds.
Dhaka is also supremely industrialized, which plays a key role in the skyrocketing population growth and the daily tidal wave of commuters, WorldAtlas concludes.
Dhaka remains not only the country's most populous city but stays among the top global cities.
At the outset of this year, the capital city of Bangladesh ranked the sixth most populous city in the world.
With a density of 23,234 people per square kilometer, the current metro area population of Dhaka is 22,478,116, as of 2022, the World Population Review said in a report in January.
The capital city, which is about 300 square kilometers in size, has seen a 3.39% increase in population from 2021.
Having a total population of 37,435,191 at that time, Tokyo was the world's most densely populated city.
In the latest ranking, India's New Delhi and China's Shanghai secured the second and third spots with the population of 32,065,760 and 28,516,904 respectively.
Sau Paolo (with 22,429,800 people), Mexico City (22,085,140), Cairo (21,750,020), Beijing (21,333,332), Mumbai (20,961,472) and Osaka (19,059,856) ranked fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth respectively.
The latest ranking came almost two weeks after the United Nations disclosed that the global population reached 8 billion people.
Population has doubled in the past five decades -– the global population hit 4 billion in 1974. And it took just a little more than a decade for the planet to add its latest billion in population after it reached 7 billion in 2011.
Lower-middle income and low-income countries contributed the most to the milestone, officials said. Asia and Africa contributed the most to the growth.
Mentionable, Dhaka South, according to the government data, is the most densely populated city corporation, with 39,353 people per square kilometre.
Experts find the rising trend in Dhaka's population alarming and blame migration and the lack of policy for effective land use, poor coordination between ministries and divisions, and initiatives to make Dhaka more attractive for the situation.
Decentralization remains only in words, but increasing facilities in Dhaka attract people to become Dhaka-bound, they say.