Atlas Trail
Ten Cities That Grew Beside a Capital or Around an Industry
These ten cities got big for a reason other than being a national capital: six grew as neighbors of Manila and Jakarta, and four rose around a steel works, a shipyard cluster, a diamond field or a border crossing. Read in that order, they show how a large city can be made by proximity to a bigger one or by a single trade.
Stop 1 of 10.
Cities
Caloocan is a Metro Manila city of about 1.71 million people on 55.8 square kilometers, which makes it one of the most densely populated places in the capital region. Its record gives a founding year of 1815 and ties it to the founding of the Katipunan revolutionary movement.
Stop 2 of 10.
Cities
Taguig was once a lakeside fishing town on Laguna de Bay and now holds about 1.31 million people on 47.28 square kilometers. Since the early 2000s it has become a business and financial district built around the master-planned Bonifacio Global City.
Stop 3 of 10.
Cities
Antipolo sits in the hills east of Metro Manila and is the capital of Rizal province, with about 914,000 residents spread over 306 square kilometers. It is both a pilgrimage site centered on its cathedral and a fast-growing residential suburb of the capital region.
Stop 4 of 10.
Cities
Tangerang lies on the western border of Jakarta and has about 1.93 million people on 164.55 square kilometers. Its factories make it a manufacturing center of Greater Jakarta, and Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Indonesia's busiest, lies in the surrounding area.
Stop 5 of 10.
Cities
Bekasi, on Jakarta's eastern border, is the largest city in West Java and the third largest in Indonesia, with an estimated 2.65 million people in mid 2025. Manufacturing estates supply domestic and export markets, while much of its workforce commutes into the capital each day.
Stop 6 of 10.
Cities
Depok is a landlocked city directly south of Jakarta, covering about 200 square kilometers with an estimated 2.16 million people in mid 2024. It is mainly a residential commuter city, and it is home to the main campus of the University of Indonesia.
Stop 7 of 10.
Cities
Ciudad Guayana is a planned industrial city in Venezuela, stretching about 40 kilometers along the Orinoco where the Caroni River joins it. Its record dates the city to 1961 and credits iron, steel and hydroelectric power from the Guri Dam, with San Félix and Puerto Ordaz merged into one city of about 978,000 people.
Stop 8 of 10.
Cities
Ulsan is South Korea's seventh-largest metropolitan city, with about 1.1 million people on roughly 1,057 square kilometers. Some of the world's largest shipyards, plus automobile and petrochemical plants, give it one of the highest per-capita incomes in the country.
Stop 9 of 10.
Cities
Mbuji-Mayi, called Bakwanga until the end of 1962, is the capital of Kasai-Oriental Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Population estimates range widely, from about 1.48 million to 3.5 million, and the city grew around the regional diamond mining industry and remains tied to that trade.
Stop 10 of 10.
Cities
Ciudad del Este is Paraguay's second-largest city, on the Parana River next to the Brazilian border and joined to it by the Friendship Bridge. It was founded by decree on 3 February 1957, and it is the largest city of the Triple Frontier region, near the Itaipu Dam and Iguazu Falls.
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