page_title: Greater Mexico City
section_title: Demographics
hierarchical_section_title: Greater Mexico City / Demographics
caption_attribution_description: Español: Mapa histórico del crecimiento de la ciudad de México Mapa del crecimiento de la ciudad de México, de 1930 a 2000.
context_page_description: Greater Mexico City refers to the conurbation around Mexico City, officially called Mexico City Metropolitan Area, constituted by Mexico City itself composed of 16 Municipalities—and 41 adjacent municipalities of the states of Mexico and Hidalgo. For normative purposes, however, Greater Mexico City most commonly refers to the Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Mexico an agglomeration that incorporates 18 additional municipalities. As of 2018 an estimated 21,581,000 people lived in Greater Mexico City, making it the largest metropolitan area in North America. It is surrounded by thin strips of highlands which separate it from other adjacent metropolitan areas, of which the biggest are Puebla, Toluca, and Cuernavaca-Cuautla, and together with which it makes up the Mexico City megalopolis.
  Since the 1940s there have been different proposals to establish the limits of the growing conurbation of Mexico City, and different definitions were used unofficially as the city continued to grow.
context_section_description: Greater Mexico City is the largest metropolitan area in Mexico and the area with the highest population density. As of 2018, an estimated 21,581,000 persons live in this metropolitan area, of which 8,841,916 live in Mexico City proper. In terms of population, the biggest municipalities that are part of Greater Mexico City (excluding Mexico City proper) are:
  Ecatepec de Morelos (pop. 1,658,904).
  Nezahualcóyotl (pop. 1,109,363).
  Naucalpan (pop. 833,782).
  Tlalnepantla de Baz (pop. 664,160).
  Chimalhuacán (pop. 602,079).
  Ixtapaluca (pop. 467,630).
  Cuautitlán Izcalli (pop. 532,973).
  Atizapan de Zaragoza (pop. 489,775)
  The above municipalities are located in the state of Mexico; in fact, approximately 75% (10 million) of the state of México's population live in municipalities that are part of Greater Mexico City's conurbation.
  Greater Mexico City was the fastest growing metropolitan area in the country until the late 1980s. Since then, and through a policy of decentralization in order to reduce the environmental pollutants of the growing conurbation, the annual rate of growth of the agglomeration has decreased, and it is lower than that of the other four largest metropolitan areas (namely Greater Guadalajara, Greater Monterrey, Greater Puebla and Greater Toluca) even though it is still positive. The net migration rate of Mexico City proper from 1995 to 2000, however, was negative, which implies that residents are moving to the suburbs of the metropolitan area, or to other states of Mexico.  In addition, some inner city suburbs are losing population to outer city suburbs, indicating continual expansion of Greater Mexico City.
caption: Growth of the urban area from 1900 to 2000
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