Has Delhi overtaken Mumbai as most populous city?

The Capital has overtaken Mumbai in becoming the most populous metropolis in the country.

Two demographies from the Washington DC-based Population Reference Bureau (PRB) have found that if the same definition for measuring the population of Mumbai and Kolkata is applied to Delhi, then the Capital's estimated population for 2007 is much more.

Carl Haub, co-author of the study and one who holds the Conrad Taeuber Chair of Population Information at PRB, in his study, Is Delhi India's largest city? , suggests, "It is important that we do not downplay the size of Delhi's metropolitan area, which should count for the entire economic entity of the National Capital Territory."

The widely accepted definition of a metropolitan area includes its suburban areas and towns.

In India, such metropolitan areas are defined as Urban Agglomerations (UA). But according to the two demographers, India defines its UAs in a somewhat quirky way.

"They cannot cross state boundaries which does affect Delhi's official population size," said O P Sharma, PRB's India consultant and former deputy director of census operations in India.

As of last year, Delhi may have overtaken Mumbai even as for over two decades now, the Census reports have pegged Mumbai as the country's biggest metropolitan area. According to the studies, Delhi is not actually a state but the NCT, while the 2001 Census only included the NCT population. The census count stood at 1,38,50,507, but since rural population is not included, the Delhi UA population was 1,32,05,697.