The One-Minute Geographer: More Than Rio

What’s Up With Latin American Cities?

Recife, Brazil has come a long way since colonial days when its economy was based on fishing and sugar cane export. Photo by Arne Müseler here / arne-mueseler.com / CC-BY-SA-3.0 / https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.de

Quick, what’s the largest city in the Western Hemisphere? We’re talking about North, South, and Central America and the Caribbean. New York City? Good guess, and you’re right! Metro New York is home to about 23.5 million people, but as you can see on the chart below, São Paulo, Brazil (2022 data) has probably exceeded it by now and Mexico City will soon follow. Almost all the Latin American cities (metros) on the chart are rapidly growing and New York is experiencing very slow growth and even a decline between 2020 census and 2024 estimates.

I didn’t want to clutter the chart above with US and Canadian cities but I arranged it, as you can see, to give you an idea of approximate size comparisons with US cities. Even though the smallest cities on the chart are about the size of Tampa or Denver, you may find some names of cities you never heard of. I’m making a point in this post of showing pictures not of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Mexico City, but of lesser-known cities.