By Jennifer Ambanta | Jan. 26, 2015 at
11:00pm [ manilastandardtoday.com ]
The Philippines has the sixth fastest
growing urban population in Asia, the World Bank said Monday.
Data showed urban population in the
country had been rising the fastest in the region, next to Mongolia, Vietnam,
China, Cambodia and Laos.
“Urban areas in the Philippines are
among the densest in the region, and are becoming denser,” the World Bank said
in a new report titled East Asia’s Changing Urban Landscape: Measuring a Decade
of Spatial Growth.
The report said in 2010, the
Philippines had the eighth-largest amount of built-up area in the East Asia
region. “The urban landscape of the Philippines is polarized, with one megacity
urban area, Manila, and a number of much smaller urban areas,” it said.
Metro Manila was listed as one of the
region’s megacities of 10 million or more inhabitants. It was home to 16.5 million people in 2010.
The next largest urban area in the
country as measured by population, Cebu, is much smaller, at 1.5 million. Three
urban areas are in the 500,000 to 1 million population range and another 16 are
in the 100,000 to 500,000 range, as of 2010, the World Bank said.
“The Manila urban area is the
Philippines’ undisputed primate city, with no close competitors,” the World
Bank said.
Metro Manila’s population density
increased from 11,900 people per square kilometer in 2000 to almost 13,000 in
2010. About half the population growth occurred in Metro Manila, mostly in
Quezon City (up 500,000 people), Caloocan City (up 300,000 people) and the city
of Manila (300,000).
Metro Manila is much denser than the rest of
the urban area, with Manila the densest local unit (almost 48,000 people per
square kilometer).
The administrative area of Metro
Manila added nearly 2.3 million residents with a negligible increase in urban
built-up area.
The World Bank said Metro Manila had
10 percent of the overall urban land and 16 percent of the overall
population. However, spatial buildup was
not only seen in Manila but also to neighboring provinces and cities.
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