List of the largest metropolitan areas in the Americas

This is a list of the 50 largest metropolitan area
Metropolitan area
The term metropolitan area refers to a region consisting of a densely populated urban core and its less-populated surrounding territories, sharing industry, infrastructure, and housing. A metropolitan area usually encompasses multiple jurisdictions and municipalities: neighborhoods, townships,...

s in America
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...

. Official definitions of metropolitan area based on the concept of a single urban core and its immediate surroundings are used where available. For cities

City

A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...

in countries that do not have official metropolitan area definitions, the urban agglomeration concept is used instead. For the 50 largest cities

City

in the Americas, see Largest cities in the Americas
Largest Cities in the Americas
This is a list of the 50 largest cities in the Americas by population. Official definitions of cities are defined according to the concept of city proper, which is the territory within the city limits. The list ranks the world's urban municipal units according to population...

.

List

Largest metro area
Metro Area
Metro Area is a Brooklyn-based dance music production team composed of Morgan Geist and Darshan Jesrani.- History :Geist grew up in Wayne, New Jersey, while Jesrani is from upstate New York...

s in the Americas
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...

Rank	Metropolitan area	Population	Year
1	Mexico City Greater Mexico City Greater Mexico City refers to the conurbation around Mexico City, officially called Mexico City Metropolitan Area , constituted by the Federal District—itself composed of 16 boroughs—and 41 adjacent municipalities of the states of Mexico and Hidalgo... According to the most recent definition agreed upon by the governments of the Federal District Mexico City Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole... , the State of Mexico and the state of Hidalgo, the Mexico City Metropolitan Area Greater Mexico City Greater Mexico City refers to the conurbation around Mexico City, officially called Mexico City Metropolitan Area , constituted by the Federal District—itself composed of 16 boroughs—and 41 adjacent municipalities of the states of Mexico and Hidalgo... is constituted by the Federal District (8,873,017, itself composed of 16 boroughs Boroughs of the Mexican Federal District Mexico City — politically and administratively constituted as the Federal District — is divided into sixteen boroughs for administrative purposes. They constitute second-level administrative divisions, on par with the municipalities of Mexico. However, unlike municipalities, they do not have... ), 59 adjacent municipalities Municipalities of Mexico Municipalities are the second-level administrative division in Mexico . There are 2,438 municipalities in Mexico, making the average municipality population 45,616... of the State of Mexico (11,166,673) and 29 municipalities of the state of Hidalgo (1,364,744). The current federal government (SEDESOL/CONAPO/INEGI) definition dates from 2005; on the basis of this definition the 2010 population is 20,137,152.	21,404,435	2010
2	São Paulo Greater São Paulo The Greater São Paulo is a nonspecific term for one of the multiple definitions the large metropolitan area located in the São Paulo state in Brazil.-Definitions:-Metropolitan Area:...	19,889,559	2009
3	New York New York metropolitan area The New York metropolitan area, also known as Greater New York, or the Tri-State area, is the region that composes of New York City and the surrounding region...	19,069,796	2009
4	Buenos Aires Greater Buenos Aires Greater Buenos Aires is the generic denomination to refer to the megalopolis comprising the autonomous city of Buenos Aires and the conurbation around it, over the province of Buenos Aires—namely the adjacent 24 partidos or municipalities—which nonetheless do not constitute a single administrative...	13,074,000	2010
5	Los Angeles Los Angeles Metropolitan Area The Los Angeles metropolitan area, also known as Metropolitan Los Angeles or the Southland, is the 13th largest metropolitan area in the world and the second-largest metropolitan area in the United States....	12,874,797	2009
6	Rio de Janeiro Greater Rio de Janeiro The Greater Rio de Janeiro is a large metropolitan area located in Rio de Janeiro state in Brazil, the second largest in Brazil and third largest in South America...	11,529,194	2007
7	Chicago	9,580,567	2009
8	Bogotá Metropolitan Area of Bogotá Metropolitan Area of Bogotá is the unofficial metropolitan area of the Colombian capital city of Bogotá, usually used for statistical analysis or technical use....	8,493,675	2009
9	Lima Lima Metropolitan Area The Lima Metropolitan Area , is an area formed by the conurbation of the Peruvian cities of Lima and Callao. It is the largest metropolitan area in Peru, the eighth largest in the Americas, and among the thirty largest in the world. The conurbation process started to be evident in the 1980s. The...	8,482,619	2007
10	Dallas/Fort Worth Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex The Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington Metropolitan Statistical Area, a title designated by the U.S. Census as of 2003, encompasses 12 counties within the U.S. state of Texas. The area is divided into two metropolitan divisions: Dallas–Plano–Irving and Fort Worth–Arlington. Residents of the area...	6,447,615	2009
11	Philadelphia Delaware Valley The Delaware Valley is a term used to refer to the valley where the Delaware River flows, along with the surrounding communities. This includes the metropolitan area centered on the city of Philadelphia. Such educational institutions as Delaware Valley Regional High School in Alexandria Township...	5,968,252	2009
12	Santiago Santiago, Chile Santiago , also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile, and the center of its largest conurbation . It is located in the country's central valley, at an elevation of above mean sea level...	5,952,000	2010
13	Houston Greater Houston Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown is a 10-county metropolitan area defined by the Office of Management and Budget. It is located along the Gulf Coast region in the U.S. state of Texas...	5,867,489	2009
14	Toronto Greater Toronto Area The Greater Toronto Area is the largest metropolitan area in Canada, with a 2006 census population of 5.5 million. The Greater Toronto Area is usually defined as the central city of Toronto, along with four regional municipalities surrounding it: Durham, Halton, Peel, and York...	5,623,450	2009
15	Miami	5,547,051	2009
16	Washington D.C. Washington Metropolitan Area The Washington Metropolitan Area is the metropolitan area centered on Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. The area includes all of the federal district and parts of the U.S...	5,476,241	2009
17	Atlanta	5,475,213	2009
18	Belo Horizonte Belo Horizonte Belo Horizonte is the capital of and largest city in the state of Minas Gerais, located in the southeastern region of Brazil. It is the third largest metropolitan area in the country...	5,403,050	2007
19	Boston Greater Boston Greater Boston is the area of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts surrounding the city of Boston. Due to ambiguity in usage, the size of the area referred to can be anywhere between that of the metropolitan statistical area of Boston and that of the city's combined statistical area which includes...	4,588,680	2009
20	Guadalajara Guadalajara Metropolitan Area The Guadalajara Metropolitan Area is the most populous metropolitan area of the Mexican state of Jalisco and the second largest in the country after Greater Mexico City...	4,434,252	2010
21	Detroit	4,403,437	2009
22	Phoenix Phoenix Metropolitan Area The Phoenix metropolitan area, often referred to as The Valley of the Sun, is a metropolitan area, centered on the city of Phoenix, that includes much of the central part of the US state of Arizona...	4,364,094	2009
23	Caracas Caracas Caracas , officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela; natives or residents are known as Caraquenians in English . It is located in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range...	4,325,000	2010
24	San Francisco San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...	4,317,853	2009
25	Riverside-San Bernardino Inland Empire (California) The Inland Empire is a region in Southern California. The region sits directly east of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Inland Empire most commonly is used in reference to the U.S. Census Bureau's federally-defined Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metropolitan area, which covers more than...	4,143,113	2009
26	Monterrey Monterrey Metropolitan area The Monterrey metropolitan area refers to the surrounding urban agglomeration of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. Officially called Area Metropolitana de la Ciudad de Monterrey or AMM, the metropolitan area is the 3rd-largest such area in Mexico....	4,080,329	2010
27	Porto Alegre Porto Alegre Porto Alegre is the tenth most populous municipality in Brazil, with 1,409,939 inhabitants, and the centre of Brazil's fourth largest metropolitan area . It is also the capital city of the southernmost Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. The city is the southernmost capital city of a Brazilian...	3,975,545	2007
28	Montreal Greater Montreal Area Greater Montreal is one of the two metropolitan communities of Quebec.Greater Montreal is the most populous metropolitan area in Québec. As of 2009, Statistics Canada identifies Montréal's Census Metropolitan Area as Canada's second most populous with a population of 3,859,318...	3,814,738	2009
29	Recife Recife Recife is the fifth-largest metropolitan area in Brazil with 4,136,506 inhabitants, the largest metropolitan area of the North/Northeast Regions, the 5th-largest metropolitan influence area in Brazil, and the capital and largest city of the state of Pernambuco. The population of the city proper...	3,661,119	2007
30	Salvador	3,599,538	2007
31	Brasília Brasília Brasília is the capital city of Brazil. The name is commonly spelled Brasilia in English. The city and its District are located in the Central-West region of the country, along a plateau known as Planalto Central. It has a population of about 2,557,000 as of the 2008 IBGE estimate, making it the...	3,558,166	2007
32	Medellín	3,496,757	2009
33	Seattle Seattle metropolitan area The Seattle metropolitan area in the US state of Washington includes the city of Seattle, King County, Snohomish County, and Pierce County within the Puget Sound region. The U.S...	3,407,848	2009
34	Fortaleza Fortaleza Fortaleza is the state capital of Ceará, located in Northeastern Brazil. With a population close to 2.5 million , Fortaleza is the 5th largest city in Brazil. It has an area of and one of the highest demographic densities in the country...	3,376,883	2007
35	Santo Domingo	3,275,000	2010
36	Minneapolis-Saint Paul	3,269,814	2009
37	Curitiba Curitiba Curitiba is the capital of the Brazilian state of Paraná. It is the largest city with the biggest economy of both Paraná and southern Brazil. The population of Curitiba numbers approximately 1.75 million people and the latest GDP figures for the city surpass US$61 billion according to...	3,139,389	2007
38	San Diego San Diego metropolitan area The San Diego Metropolitan Area, also known as Greater San Diego and officially the San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos Metropolitan Statistical Area, is a metropolitan area on the United States Pacific Coast. The U.S. Census of the Bureau defines the San Diego metropolitan area as encompassing all of...	3,053,793	2009
39	Guatemala City Guatemala City Guatemala City , is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Guatemala and Central America...	2,925,000	2010
40	St. Louis	2,828,990	2009
41	Tampa Bay Tampa Bay Area The Tampa Bay Area is the region of west central Florida adjacent to Tampa Bay. Definitions of the region vary. It is often considered equivalent to the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater Metropolitan Statistical Area defined by the United States Census Bureau. The Census Bureau currently...	2,747,272	2009
42	Cali	2,719,204	2009
43	Baltimore Baltimore Metropolitan Area The Baltimore-Towson Metropolitan Statistical Area, also known as Central Maryland, is a Metropolitan Statistical Area in Maryland as defined by the United States Office of Management and Budget...	2,690,886	2009
44	Guayaquil Guayaquil Guayaquil , officially Santiago de Guayaquil , is the largest and the most populous city in Ecuador,with about 2.3 million inhabitants in the city and nearly 3.1 million in the metropolitan area, as well as that nation's main port...	2,690,000	2010
45	Puebla Metropolitan area of Puebla The Metropolitan area of Puebla or Greater Puebla is the fourth largest agglomeration in Mexico with a population of 2.109 million. This agglomeration includes 10 municipalities of the state of Puebla, and 13 municipalities of the state of Tlaxcala...	2,668,347	2010
46	San Juan San Juan, Puerto Rico San Juan , officially Municipio de la Ciudad Capital San Juan Bautista , is the capital and most populous municipality in Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 395,326 making it the 46th-largest city under the jurisdiction of...	2,617,089	2009
47	Denver	2,552,195	2009
48	Campinas Campinas Campinas is a city and municipality located in the coastal interior of the state of São Paulo, Brazil. is the administrative center of the meso-region of the same name, with 3,783,597 inhabitants as of the 2010 Census, consisting of 49 cities....	2,484,555	2007
49	Pittsburgh	2,354,957	2009
50	Vancouver Greater Vancouver Greater Vancouver is the metropolitan area centred on the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, roughly coterminous with the Greater Vancouver Regional District, which is governed by a body known as Metro Vancouver...	2,328,007	2009

Rank	International Metropolitan area	Population	Year
14	- Detroit–Windsor	5,760,344	2010
19	- San Diego–Tijuana	5,105,769	2010
48	- Juárez–El Paso	2,525,583	2010
85	- McAllen–Reynosa Reynosa–McAllen Metropolitan Area Reynosa–McAllen, also known as McAllen–Reynosa, or simply as Borderplex, is one of the six bi-national metropolitan areas along the Mexico–U.S border. The city of Reynosa is situated on the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, on the southern bank of the Rio Grande, while the city of McAllen is located in...	1,700,000	2010
110	- Matamoros–Brownsville Matamoros–Brownsville Metropolitan Area Matamoros–Brownsville, also known as Brownsville–Matamoros, or simply as the Borderplex, is one of the six bi-national metropolitan areas along the Mexico–U.S border...	1,136,995	2010

List

See also