B. Area and Density

The area of the 124 cities who reported their geographic size also varies greatly. Table 4 shows that for all the 124 the range is from 5.8 to 805 square kilometers, with a mean of about 166. For the most part, however, these cities are less than 500 square kilometers. This includes 22 of the 26 Japanese cities and 92 of the 98 cities in the other seven countries. Only four Japanese cities, two in Indonesia, and three in Korea spread over more than 500 square kilometers, and all of these are less than 1000 square kilometers.

In density, we have the same large range, from 311 to 109,000 persons per square kilometer and a mean of 4,948. There is a considerable cluster, however, in the range 1000 to 10,000 persons per square kilometer. This includes 14 of the 26 Japanese cities and 83 of the cities in the other seven countries.

Since these cities have for the most part been selected to represent the middle sized cities, they cannot be taken to represent the overall Asian urban scene. In effect, we have information on cities, that are typically between 100,000 and 1 million in population, just under 500 square kilonieters in area, and have densities that range between 1000 and 10,000 persons per square kilometer.

Table 4.
Area and Density of 124 Asian Cities