The following list sorts first-level administrative divisions of

countries A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state (polity), state, nation, or other polity, political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, so ...

according to their number of inhabitants. Only administrative units of the highest order are listed. Regions formed for statistical purposes without administrative autonomy, such as the

Kantō region The is a geographical area of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. In a common definition, the region includes the Greater Tokyo Area and encompasses seven prefectures: Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Saitama, Tokyo, Chiba and Kanagawa. Slight ...

in Japan or the eight federal districts of Russia, are not included. Cities, on the other hand, can be counted if they form a first-level administrative unit, such as Shanghai or the capital region of Delhi, which are equivalent to a Chinese province or an Indian state. Administrative units such as

Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, with 9,861,224 residents estimated as of 2022. It is the ...

, which has more than ten million inhabitants, are not included in the list as they are already counted as part of the first-level administrative division of California.

List

All first level administrative units with more than five million inhabitants at the last ascertainable date. Also indicated are the administrative center (capital city), the type of administrative unit, the country to which the administrative unit belongs, the land area and the population density per square kilometer of land area.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:first-level administrative divisions By population first-level administrative divisions subdivisions Country second-level subdivisions by population !