Dhaka will be one of the 20 most populous cities of the world by the turn of the cen tury, says the UNFPA's World Population Report-1993, reports UNB.

The report reveals that 12 cities in Asia will be in the list of top 20 megacities by the year 2000. Among the megacf-ties there will be only three metropolitan cities of the developed countries, according to the report.

The population of Dhaka, projected as the 17th megacity, will stand at 1.22 crore by the end of the century.

Mexico city will be the most populous and its population will reach at about 2.56 crore, which will be followed by Sao Paulo in Brazil 2.21 crore. Tokyo in Japan 1.90 crore, Shanghai in China 1.70 crore, New York in USA 1.68 crore, Calcutta and Bomba in India 1.57 crore and 1.54 crore respectively, Chinese capital Beijing 1.40 crore, Los Angeles 1.39 crore and Jakarta in Indonesia 1.37 crore.

The other most populous metropolitan cities are Delhi (1.32 crore). Buenos Aires (1.29 crore), Lagos (1.29 orore), Tianjin (1.27 crore), Seoul (1.27 crore), Rio De Janeiro (1.25 crore), Cairo (1.18 crore), Metro Manila (1.18 crore) and Karachi (1.17 crore).

A phenomenon of the last 20 years has been the growth of megacities in developing countries, says the UNFPA report released at a press conference in Dhaka yesterday as elsewhere in the world.

Seven of the 10 largest cities were in the developing

countries in 1950 and none exceeded a population of 1.50 crore. But by the end of 1990, eight were in this area and all had exceeded 1.50 crore citizens.

The concentration of urban people in megacities is striking, says the report. More than 30 per cent of the urban populations live in the capital cities of Argentina, Bangladesh, Egypt, the Republic of Korea. Mexico, Peru, the Philippines and Thailand.

The world is steadily becoming more urban," the report observes. In 1950, 83 per cent of the developing world's population lived in rural areas. It came down to 75 per cent in 1975 and by the end of the present decade it is expected to be 60 per cent, the report adds.

By the early decades of the next century more than half of the world's people will live in cities.

The report predicts that the 125 cities in developing countries with more than 10 lakh people will increase to some 300 by the year 2000. In Africa alone, the least urbanised continent, there are now 37 such cities, as compared with only two in 1950.

The report states that while urban growth in many developing countries continues at an unprecedented rate, the cities' capacity to provide economic opportunities and even modest levels of support services to newcomers is declining rather than increasing.

Even medium-sized urban centres experience difficulties in providing for ever growing populations.