B. I. BellKenneth Rexroth
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A "large city" named Megalopolis was founded in Greece in 371 B.C. to help defend the region called Arcadia against the city-state of Sparta. Though a stadium seating 20,000 was built there, indicating the city's impressive size for its time, Megalopolis today has only about 5,000 people. Social scientists now identify 10 megalopolises in the U.S., each with more than 10 million people. The one on the eastern seaboard that stretches from Boston to Washington, D.C., where the densely populated cities seem to flow into each other all along the coast, is now home to over 50 million people. But it's easily surpassed by the Japanese megalopolis that includes Tokyo, with more than 80 million inhabitants.
Examples of megalopolis in a Sentence
Phil Wahba, Fortune, 4 Nov. 2025
Reef-building corals—the engineers of myriad underwater structures—create maritime megalopolises dense with crevices and hidey-holes for fish and other sea creatures.
—Fanni Szakal, Smithsonian Magazine, 27 June 2024
While strolling the exhibits, García explains the roots of one of the largest megalopolises on earth and how its evolution lends to the symbology and tradition of the festival.
—Condé Nast Traveler, 10 Nov. 2023
In the post-Soviet period, both cities had evolved into European megalopolises.
—Michael Kimmage, Foreign Affairs, 19 June 2023
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Cite this Entry
“Megalopolis.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/megalopolis. Accessed 20 Jun. 2026.
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megalopolis
noun
