It's alarming as Dhaka ranks world's second most populous city 

On November 26, 2025, the United Nations announced a milestone that should have shaken Bangladesh to its core: Dhaka is now the world's second largest city, home to 36.6 million people, surpassed only by Jakarta of Indonesia. Far from being a moment of pride, this revelation exposes the harsh reality Bangladesh has refused to confront for decades-Dhaka is bursting at the seams, and its very survival is under threat. The city's growth has not been accompanied by planned expansion, infrastructural strengthening, or environmental protection. Instead, Dhaka has expanded chaotically, absorbing more people than it can sustain, weakening its foundations, and stretching its resources beyond their limits.

For many global cities, joining the ranks of mega cities symbolizes economic strength, cultural importance, and steady modernization. But for Dhaka, becoming the world's second-largest metropolis highlights a deepening crisis. It represents a dangerous combination of unchecked population inflow, failed decentralization, insufficient urban planning, decaying infrastructure, and looming natural hazards that together create a perfect storm. What Dhaka has become today is not a global powerhouse-it is a megacity on life support.

Dhaka's ascent as a mega city is not an achievement to celebrate but a glaring indictment of Bangladesh's longstanding policy failures. Unlike Jakarta, Tokyo, Manila, Delhi, or Sao Paulo, Dhaka's expansion is neither organic nor supported by adequate infrastructure. The city is carrying far more than it was ever designed to handle. While Jakarta-the world's largest mega city-has a population density of roughly 16,165 people per square kilometer, Dhaka's density is a staggering 29,234 people per square kilometer. This means Dhaka is almost twice to nearly three times as dense as Jakarta, despite Jakarta having a slightly larger population. The difference is not just statistical-it defines the lived experience of every resident. It shapes mobility, air quality, housing, public health, and the city's capacity to survive future shocks.

This extreme density is paired with Dhaka's chronic habit of overuse and exploitation. No city in the world is being used more intensely than Dhaka. People depend on it for jobs, education, healthcare, business, government services, transport, and opportunities that should have been spread across Bangladesh through long-term decentralization. Instead, Dhaka became the gravitational center that pulls everything and everyone. The result is a massive overconcentration of economic and social activity that has produced an overstressed, fragile, and dangerously imbalanced urban world.

Alongside the pressures imposed by everyday life, Dhaka now stands at the edge of a far deadlier threat: earthquakes. Recently, recurrent tremors across Bangladesh have served as a warning that a major earthquake is not just possible but increasingly likely. Dhaka lies dangerously close to several active fault lines, including the Dauki Fault that historically triggered devastating earthquakes. Scientists have repeatedly noted that a major quake near Dhaka could result in one of the worst urban disasters of modern times, as the city is filled with unplanned, unreinforced buildings, narrow roads, and fragile infrastructure completely incapable of absorbing seismic shocks.

This combination-overpopulation, decaying infrastructure, and seismic vulnerability-places Dhaka at the door of destruction. If a significant earthquake occurs, then the consequences would be far more catastrophic than anything the world has seen in decades. The tragedy will not merely be natural; it will be the result of years of infrastructural neglect and unregulated urbanization.

Environmental degradation is the next dimension of Dhaka's existential crisis. The city has become a textbook case of urban pollution in its worst form. Dhaka's air pollution consistently ranks among the highest globally, with hazardous particulate matter exceeding safe levels almost every day of the year. The air is no longer just polluted-it is poisonous, contributing to thousands of premature deaths annually, while increasing respiratory diseases in children and elderly populations.

Noise pollution in Dhaka has reached intolerable levels, far beyond the limits recommended by the World Health Organization. With millions of vehicles, endless construction, and chaotic urban movement, residents live in a soundscape that damages mental health, disrupts sleep, harms hearing, and increases stress-related illnesses. Water pollution is equally alarming. The Buriganga, Turag, Balu, and Shitalakshya rivers have become toxic streams contaminated by industrial waste, sewage discharge, chemicals, plastics, and household garbage. Dhaka's groundwater is also being depleted at an unsustainable rate as the city drills deeper and deeper for freshwater, causing land subsidence and long-term hydrological imbalance.

Dust pollution adds another layer of danger. With relentless construction, unregulated brick kilns, road digging, and mismanaged waste, Dhaka's air becomes a dense, choking haze during the dry season. Visual pollution contributes to the city's collapse-tangled electric lines, unplanned structures, overcrowded roads, illegal billboards, and congested streets form a chaotic urban landscape that erodes the quality of life and reflects decades of neglect. These multiple forms of pollution are lethal stressors pushing Dhaka toward irreversible ecological collapse.

Despite all this, national policymakers have often avoided acknowledging the magnitude of Dhaka's crisis. But now, with the UN declaring Dhaka the second largest megacity of the world, denial is no longer an option. Dhaka's overpopulation is not a temporary issue-it is a direct threat to its survival. The same UN projection that placed Dhaka at number two also predicts that Dhaka may become the world's largest city by 2050. If Dhaka cannot manage 36.6 million people today, it will be impossible to accommodate more than 50 million residents within the next twenty-five years.

This projected future would be catastrophic. Dhaka does not have the land, the climate resilience, the urban planning, or the environmental capacity to support such explosive growth. As the population grows, everything else will fall apart-sanitation, water supply, drainage, transport systems, emergency services, health systems, food supply chains, education, and even basic civic functions.

This is why Bangladesh's policymakers must confront the hard truth: Dhaka cannot survive this population pressure. Continuing to pour the nation's resources, governance, and administrative institutions into one city is not just inefficient-it is dangerous. Bangladesh must begin planning for a new capital, just as many countries have done when their largest cities became overstressed. Brazil moved its capital from Rio to Brasília; Nigeria shifted from Lagos to Abuja; Kazakhstan moved to Astana; Malaysia built Putrajaya; Myanmar relocated to Naypyidaw; and Indonesia is now actively shifting its capital from Jakarta to Nusantara precisely because Jakarta became too congested, polluted, and vulnerable to climate risks.

Bangladesh must follow these global precedents before it is too late. A new capital, built with long-term planning, climate resilience, transport networks, and sustainable design, would allow Bangladesh to decentralize governance, reduce the urban burden on Dhaka, create new economic hubs, and distribute development across the country. Dhaka would then have a chance to recover-its rivers could gradually be restored, its air could become breathable, its roads manageable, its neighborhoods livable.

Continuing to pretend that Dhaka can carry the entire nation is no longer an option. The city has reached its limits. The recent UN announcement is not just a statistic; it is a warning. Dhaka is now the second largest megacity in the world, but it is standing on the edge of collapse. If Bangladesh does not act with urgency, Dhaka's future will be one of disaster, and its present trajectory will push it closer to extinction. Bangladesh must protect its capital before it becomes unlivable, even if we need to build a new capital, while saving Dhaka from the fate it is dangerously close to meeting.