Jakarta surges past Tokyo


A view of Jakarta in August last year. The Indonesian capital has surpassed Tokyo as the world’s most populous city after the United Nations overhauled how it measures urban populations. — Nicola Longobardi/The New York Times

By John Yoon

JAKARTA, Indonesia’s vibrant, overcrow­ded and sinking capital, has displaced Tokyo as the most populated city in the world, according to the United Nations, thanks to its new way of counting urban populations.

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