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When you are in Asia, have you ever thought about comparing the area of Singapore and Taipei City? Do you know which one is bigger? Do you know the real area of major Asian cities like Hong Kong, Beijing, Tokyo and Bangkok? Let’s find the answers from the 11 diagrams below.
From the map data on the website, GADM, and through equal-area projection used when drawing maps, TNL compared the area of Taipei City with other major Asian cities.
Sources: GADM, Wikipedia
Singapore’s land area is 719 square kilometers, which is small compared with other countries but is still about 2.5 times bigger than Taipei City. That means you need 2.5 times the amount of time to walk around Singapore compared with Taipei City.
What about major cities in China?
Sources: GADM, Wikipedia
Hong Kong, the financial center in Asia, is three times bigger than Taipei City and also bigger than Singapore.
Macau, which is famous for the gaming industry, is much smaller than Taipei City. It is as big as Neihu or Wenshan district in Taipei, so it is easy to finish walking around the city in one day.
Sources: GADM, Wikipedia
Note: According to the general impression of Shanghai, the area of the city here excludes Chongming County.
When it comes to Shanghai, the economic center of China, the scale is enlarged. The complete area of Shanghai (Chongming County excluded) is 18 times the area of Taipei City. The area of Taipei City is approximately the size of one of the 15 districts in Shanghai.
Sources: GADM, Wikipedia
Beijing, another big city in China, is 60.5 times the area of Taipei City, if the total area of its direct-controlled municipality is included.
However, when speaking of Beijing, we usually mean the economically developed metropolitan area.
Sources: GADM, Wikipedia
Note: The economically developed metropolitan area in Beijing excludes outer suburbs.
If we only consider the economically developed metropolitan area in Beijing, it is still five times the area of Taipei City, which is not so intimidating when compared with the area of Shanghai.
Turning to Japan.
Sources: GADM, Wikipedia
Usually when we talk about Tokyo, we refer to the most prosperous 23 municipalities, which are known as “special wards of Tokyo” and are the main areas Taiwanese tourists visit. When comparing with Taipei City, the special wards of Tokyo together are 2.3 times the area of Taipei City. It may take several weeks to walk around.
Sources: GADM, Wikipedia
Note: Osaka in this article is not Osaka Prefecture.
Osaka, a city in the Kansai region of Japan, is much smaller than Tokyo and also a little bit smaller than Taipei City. This explains why Taiwanese visitors always travel through the Keihanshin area, which includes Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe, and do not usually travel to other prefectures.
Other prominent cities in Asia:
Sources: GADM, Wikipedia
Note: Seoul in this article refers to the capital, Seoul Special City.
Seoul, capital of Korea, is about the same size as the special wards of Tokyo, which is approximately twice the area of Taipei City.
Sources: GADM, Wikipedia
Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, is 5.78 times the area of Taipei City, which may topple many people’s impressions of Bangkok. If you want to travel around such a big city, you may have to select spots to visit in order not to get too tired.
To wrap up, here are all these cities mentioned above from smallest to largest, compare their differences in area.
Sources: GADM, Wikipedia
Translated by Wen-yee Lee
Edited by Olivia Yang
