Are you from the US? I ask because I (also originally from the US) used to think similarly: how can you have so many 1M+ cities? Then I moved to Turkey. Istanbul is almost 2x the population of NYC and Ankara (Turkey's capital and 2nd city) has a greater population than Los Angeles...but it doesn't feel like that.
Now, I don't know if China is like Turkey in this regard, but I suspect it is. Turkey (and most of the world) never experienced the kind of suburban expansion that occurred in the US. So while Istanbul has 15M+ people, that's it. Yes, it's more than NYC's 8M, but if you include with NYC the entire tri-state area, then NYC's population jumps to 25M+. Ankara has 4M+ residents, but from my apartment on the edge of the city you could walk 15 min and be in the middle of a wide open field that stretched out probably 30km or more in all directions.
So I'd hazard a guess that China's 100 cities with 1M+ residents are probably more akin to a US city of 300-400k residents plus suburbs, just more compacted. According to Wikipedia, there's 53 MSAs in the US with 1M+ residents...so by that measure China's lagging a bit behind.
"New York City" with 8M is only the political and corporate entity of "New York City", which is not relevant to the "feeling" of a city. New York City metro has about 20 million people. That's what you experience when you're there.
If you talk about political entities, then San Francisco is tiny at about 860k, less than Jacksonville and San Jose. Does SF feel smaller than either of those?
Now, I don't know if China is like Turkey in this regard, but I suspect it is. Turkey (and most of the world) never experienced the kind of suburban expansion that occurred in the US. So while Istanbul has 15M+ people, that's it. Yes, it's more than NYC's 8M, but if you include with NYC the entire tri-state area, then NYC's population jumps to 25M+. Ankara has 4M+ residents, but from my apartment on the edge of the city you could walk 15 min and be in the middle of a wide open field that stretched out probably 30km or more in all directions.
So I'd hazard a guess that China's 100 cities with 1M+ residents are probably more akin to a US city of 300-400k residents plus suburbs, just more compacted. According to Wikipedia, there's 53 MSAs in the US with 1M+ residents...so by that measure China's lagging a bit behind.