The population of Delhi has more than doubled since 1975, with most of the capital's growth concentrated in the suburbs of Faridabad, Ghaziabad and Gurgaon, according to a new report. | |
| While the national capital's population has risen from a mere 4.4 million in 1975 to 12 million in 2000, it is projected to almost double by 2010, the report carried in the latest issue of Newsweek said. |
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| A photo atlas comprising satellite images of the world's major cities released by the United Nations Environment Programme, which forms the basis of the report, showed mankind's impact on the planet, from major deforestation to urban sprawl. |
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| Mexico City mushroomed from a modest urban center in 1973 to a massive blot on the landscape in 2000, while Beijing showed a similar surge between 1978 and 2000 in satellite pictures. |
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| Delhi grew explosively between 1977 and 1999, while from 1973 to 2000 the tiny desert town of Las Vegas turned into a monster city of one million people, placing a massive strain on scarce water supplies, Newsweek reports, analysing the images. |
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| Page after page of the report illustrated before-and-after pictures from space and the disfigurement of the face of the planet wrought by human activities, the magazine says, adding that they include rapid oil and gas development in Wyoming, forest fires across sub-Saharan Africa and the retreat of glaciers and ice in polar and mountain areas. |
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| The population of Nairobi, Kenya, at independence in 1963 was 350,000. Since 1979, it has seen explosive growth, and its population is now well over three million, making it the largest African city between Johannesburg and Cairo. |
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| Satellite images from 1979 and the present show how the city sprawled to new suburbs and slums north, east and west. The growth of development along the edge of the Nairobi National Park and out to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport is also visible, the report said. |
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| Sydney is Australia's largest city with over four million inhabitants. Its growth is seen spreading west towards the Blue Mountains. The urbanisation is leading to more and more homes being built in the bush, making them vulnerable to summer fires, it said. |
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| Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, has grown from 500,000 people in 1972 to more than 2 million as a result of migration from urban areas, a decrease in death rates and high birth rates. |
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