The growth of megacities in the Global South: a review of the available data on trends and patterns

The world's urban population is projected to rise to more than 60 percent of the world’s population. A few data are available for urban scholars to understand global urbanization, including the growth of megacities. The paper uses two global population data resources: World Urbanization Prospects (WUP) and Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL). This paper aims to determine the size of Global South megacities over the past 30 years. The WUP and the GHSL showed minimal disparities in trends and patterns since they relied on administrative population data. However, this study found a significant expansion of megacities spanning multiple jurisdictional units when using the GHSL data and administrative layers. This suggests the challenges in governing megacities in the Global South countries, which primarily have a fragmented nature of existing bureaucracies. Given their continuous expansion, the appropriate governance form for managing megacities will remain a critical and fascinating subject of study.