The following is a list of the largest satellite cities worldwide, with over 500,000 people. A satellite city is defined as subordinate to a central city in a business or infrastructure sense, and it may or may not have more population than the central city due to arbitrary municipal definitions.
Excluded are transborder agglomerations. In the Pop date column, C stands for census, P for provisional result, E for estimate. Although the list is ordered by population for ease of reference, the figures are not comparable with each other due to different dates and lack of updates by respective countries.
Satellite cities by population
Satellite cities are generally suburbs or bedroom communities but not always; an example is a capital that is dwarfed by a megacity. Large satellite cities may be as densely populated as a megacity.
Cities in mainland China are often defined as prefectures or counties; for the sake of simplicity, they are listed in a separate list as explained in the respective section.
The city of Pretoria, South Africa has an exceedingly large area of 6,298km2 (2,432sqmi), and as a national capital, it is hard to determine the boundaries between Pretoria's suburban areas and the suburbs of the nearby city of Johannesburg. Therefore, it is excluded here.
Malaysia has multiple types of local government, which confusingly overlap as the system was partially but not completely overhauled.
Local data may be outdated for many of the least-developed nations, and as such may not be comparable.
Cities in the People's Republic of China and Republic of China are often defined in way as prefectures/counties. Their prefecture/county limits often are physically more extensive than entire metropolitan areas, encompassing large rural areas and outright separate cities. "Satellite city" may be located both within the municipality and/or adjacent to it, depending on how the area agglomerated. Some urban districts, as in the case of Wanzhou Urban District in Chongqing Municipality (Province Level), are separated by farmlands from the core metropolitan area and functions as a satellite city in spite of naming.
As to what constitutes a "city" in the PRC, there exist other definitions of city limits are in actual usage, such as combination of several districts where urban area of the central city is dominant, or roads, railways, natural boundaries, or a combination thereof. This is commonly designated by the central statistics bureaus as "urban districts", however some counties are also included, as well as some cities opt for towns rather than counties. Some counties/districts (e.g. Handan County, Handan City(Prefecture level)) are indeed satellites of their respective central cities (e.g. Congtai, Hanshan, Fuxing districts of Handan City(Prefecture level) are a common definition of true urban area of Handan, although this definition now often also involves Handan County as the city expands).
In the case of Chaoshan Metropolitan Area, Jieyang (Prefecture-level city) urban districts border that of the central city of Shantou (Prefecture-level city), effectively spanning neighboring municipalities. Complicating the matter is the nesting of city structures, as Jieyang municipality itself is a satellite of Shantou, even though Puning city (County level city, and can be a satellite of Shantou) lies within Jieyang's jurisdiction.
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A prefecture-level city or prefectural city is an administrative division of the People's Republic of China (PRC), ranking below a province and above a county in China's administrative structure.
The provinces of Rwanda are divided into districts (akarere) and municipalities (umujyi). Prior to January 1, 2006, Rwanda was composed of 12 provinces. The Rwandan government decided to establish new provinces in an attempt to address issues that arose from the Rwandan genocide. The new provinces were to be "ethnically-diverse administrative areas".
The South Bačka District is one of seven administrative districts of the autonomous province of Vojvodina, Serbia. Geographically it lies in the southern part of Bačka and northern part of Syrmia. According to the 2022 census results, it has a population of 607,178 inhabitants. The administrative center of the district is the city of Novi Sad, which is also the capital and the largest city of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina.
Moshi Urban District is an administrative district located in Kilimanjaro Region of Tanzania. The district is home to regional capital of Kilimanjaro Region, namely Moshi. The district covers an area of 63.39 km2 (24.48 sq mi). The district is surrounded on the west by Moshi Rural District, to the east by the Hai District. According to the 2022 Tanzania National Census, the population of Moshi Urban District was 221,733.
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