Both Dubai and Kuala Lumpur are home to buildings that have held the title of the world’s tallest. Though Kaula Lumpur’s Petronas Towers have lost the title to Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the Malaysian capital has a population of 8.6 million, far exceeding Dubai’s 3 million.

Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, is Scandinavia's largest city, with 1.7 million people. Oslo has a population of 1.1 million, placing it fourth in the region, behind Helsinki, Finland, and Copenhagen, Denmark (which each have around 1.3 million residents).

Alexandria is Egypt’s second-most populous city, after Cairo, with 5.6 million people calling it home. That more than doubles the size of the city Chicago, home to around 2.6 million people. Chicago got its “Second City” nickname because it was second only to New York City on the list of most populous American cities, but it was surpassed in population by Los Angeles in 1982.

There are approximately 9.9 million people living in the official city limits of Seoul, the capital of South Korea. That is more than triple the size of Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, which contains about 3.2 million residents.

Home to America’s most famous car race and around 870,000 people, Indianapolis is much larger than the city-state of Monaco, which hosts Formula 1’s glamorous Monaco Grand Prix and is home to only 37,000 full-time residents.

The 2.79 million people living in Manchester’s urban area triples that of its coastal neighbor to the west, Liverpool, which has a metro area of about 915,000. The largest city in England by far is the capital, London, with about 14.8 million people residing in its metropolitan area.

Along with Porto, Lisbon is one of two Portuguese cities to exceed 1 million residents. The population of Lisbon’s metropolitan area is about 3 million people. The Canadian capital of Ottawa is home to about 1.4 million people, making it the sixth-largest metro area in Canada.

Both Casablanca, Morocco, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, inspired the titles of classic films. The North African city is the largest in Morocco and home to about 3.9 million people. Philadelphia is the largest city in Pennsylvania and is home to over 1.5 million people in its city proper.

The largest metropolitan area on the African continent is Cairo, Egypt, which is home to a little over 22 million people — putting it seventh on the list of Earth’s most populous metro areas. The Kenyan capital of Nairobi is home to 5.3 million people.

Buenos Aires has a metropolitan area of 15.49 million, placing it second on the South American continent behind São Paulo, Brazil. Caracas, the capital and largest city in Venezuela, is home to approximately 9 million people in its metro area.

Munich, the home of the world’s original and largest Oktoberfest, has a population of 1.6 million in its city proper, making it the third-largest city in Germany behind Berlin and Hamburg. Popular wine city Bordeaux has a population of just over 1 million people, making it France’s sixth-largest city.

For the title of most populous metropolitan area along the Mediterranean coast, Barcelona’s 5.7 million easily clears Marseille’s 1.6 million. When it comes to the largest cities in Spain, however, Barcelona falls just short of Madrid. The Spanish capital is home to over 6.7 million people.

Sitting at 7,349 feet above sea level, Mexico City is one of the world’s highest major metropolitan areas. The Colombia capital of Bogotá is even higher at 8,612 feet above sea level — but lower when it comes to population. Mexico City comes in sixth in the world with 22.3 million residents, while Bogotá has a metro area of about 11.5 million.

California is the most populous state in the country, home to over 39 million people. The Southern Californian metropolis of San Diego has about 1.4 million people in its city proper, outpacing the 815,000 people who call the Northern Californian city of San Francisco home.

São Paulo’s metropolitan area population of 22.6 million not only makes it the largest city in Brazil, but also the largest city on the continent of South America and the fifth-largest in the world. That far exceeds the population of Rio de Janeiro’s metro area, which is about 13.7 million people.

Along with New York and London, Paris and Milan are two of the four hosts of the Fashion Week celebrations around the globe every year. The population of the Parisian metropolitan area (11.2 million) tops that of Milan (3.1 million).

St. Paul may be the capital of Minnesota, but Minneapolis claims the larger population of the two famous Twin Cities. The entire metropolitan area is home to around 3.7 million people. Minneapolis’ city proper has 425,000 of them, while St. Paul is home to around 303,000 residents.

Both Rome and Greece are famous for their ancient empires, but today the Italian capital is home to about 4.3 million people, which makes it the most populous metropolitan area in Italy — and places it more than a million people ahead of Athens, Greece, with a population of 3.2 million.

China is the world’s most populous country, and it’s home to a whopping 28 of the world’s 100 most populated urban areas. However, Shanghai’s population of 29.2 million falls about 8 million short of Tokyo’s population of 37.2 million people, which makes Tokyo the world’s most populous city.

Both Los Angeles and Mumbai are famous for their filmmaking industries in Hollywood and Bollywood, respectively. Los Angeles may be the second-most populous city in the United States, but its metropolitan area population of 12.9 million people is dwarfed by Mumbai’s 21.3 million people. That makes Mumbai one of the top 10 most populous metro areas on the planet.