NEW DELHI: India stands at the epicentre of what the United Nations calls an ineluctable and historically unprecedented demographic movement as cities emerge as the primary target for habitat for majority of the population. According to World Urbanization Prospects 2025: Summary of Results, published by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (UN DESA) in 2025, India will be the pre-eminent contributor to global urban population growth between 2025 and 2050.
The report states that India, alongside Nigeria, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Bangladesh and Ethiopia, will account for 'more than half' of all new urban dwellers worldwide, adding more than 50 crore people to city regions. India alone will contribute well over 20 crore new urban residents during this period, a scale the report describes as preternatural in pace and consequence.
Urbanisation in India is proceeding at an inexorable rate. In 2025, roughly 36 percent of India’s population is estimated to be living in cities, and UN DESA projects that this proportion will approach 50 per cent by 2050, altering the quotidian social and economic landscape. The report highlights that India’s urban transition is not driven solely by megacities but by the ramified growth of small and medium-sized cities. More than 70 per cent of India’s urban residents live in settlements with fewer than 1 million inhabitants, and many of the most rapidly expanding centres have populations below 250,000.
The report notes that about 17 percent of the world’s shrinking cities between 2015 and 2025 are located in India, a statistic that underscores the uneven geography of opportunity and the fraught nature of climate-exposed and stagnant regional economies.
India has one megacity—Delhi—that ranks among the world’s largest and continues to expand despite granitic resource constraints. Delhi, home to more than 3.3 crore people in 2025, is projected to grow steadily, while Mumbai, with approximately 2.2 crore inhabitants, remains a high-density metropolis struggling to provide adequate housing and mobility. The report presents that the locus of future growth will lie in the proliferating network of smaller cities, many of which are dilatory in infrastructure development and struggling by shortfalls in transport, sanitation and planning capacity. It cautions that unless investment accelerates, these cities risk being overwhelmed by demand they are structurally unprepared to meet.
Land pressure is reaching a portentous threshold. Built-up land in India has expanded rapidly. Large tracts of agricultural land have been subsumed into urban development, exacerbating risks to food security and ecological sustainability. The report warns that as India races towards becoming an urban-majority country, land-use stewardship will decide whether growth is equitable and resilient or degenerates into a squalid contest over shrinking resources.
Across South Asia, urbanisation is reshaping demographic and economic trajectories. The region is now the world’s most populous, and its cities are expanding at dizzying speed. Dhaka, with nearly 3.7 crore residents in 2025, is the world’s second-largest city and is on course to become the world’s largest by mid-century. Karachi continues its upward climb, while Kathmandu, Colombo, Chattogram and Thimphu are among smaller cities growing at rates above 3 per cent per year. The report records that one third of the world’s fastest-growing cities are situated in sub-Saharan Africa and one quarter in Central and Southern Asia, making South Asia a definitive locus of global change.