The use of city proper as defined by administrative boundaries may not include suburban areas where an important proportion of the population working or studying in the city lives. Cities proper and their boundaries and population data may not include suburbs. UNICEF defines city proper as, 'the population living within the administrative boundaries of a city or controlled directly from the city by a single authority.' A city proper is a locality defined according to legal or political boundaries and an administratively recognised urban status that is usually characterised by some form of local government. However, more than 70% of its residents live in rural areas.Ī city can be defined by its administrative boundaries, otherwise known as city proper. For cities bordering directly on foreign territory, border crossings from country to country are not counted as international visitors.The municipality of Chongqing, China, whose administrative jurisdictional area is around the size of Austria, has the largest population for a city proper. The income column shows the amount visitors spent in each city. Mastercard Global Destinations Cities Index counts a visitor only if a person stayed overnight at least once in the city.

The growth column compares international arrivals to the previous year.

Each arrival is counted separately and includes people travelling more than once a year and people visiting several cities during one trip. The consulting firm Euromonitor and the financial services corporation Mastercard define the concept of the foreign visitor differently thus their respective rankings differ.Įuromonitor counts a visitor as any person visiting a city in another country for at least 24 hours, for a period not exceeding 12 months, and staying in paid or unpaid, collective or private accommodation. This is a list of top 100 cities ranked by the number of international visitors, including all international arrivals by land, air, and sea, for tourist or business purposes.

Wikipedia Global City Index