NYC doesn’t even make it in the top 10 biggest cities in the world. In fact NYC comes just behind Chengdu in 38th place. And in terms of density, NYC isn’t even in the top 50.
>And in terms of density, NYC isn’t even in the top 50.
I don't believe that. If you look at Manhattan alone, you'll see something very different. Unlike many other cities (particularly in the US, but also other places), NYC is basically a collection of cities. Manhattan is dense, but Staten Island is definitely not, so that drags down the average density. It's not fair to compare that with many other places.
Any "top 50" list of cities by density is inherently biased: How do you demarcate where the city's borders lie? Do you count surrounding municipalities? The whole thing is going to be comparing apples and oranges, because different cities are organized differently. It just isn't something you can easily distill down into a list like that.