[OC] I mapped the Wealth Density, Population, and GDP of 20 Major Indian Metropolitan Regions. The disparities are wild.

I've been digging into the economic data behind India's biggest metropolitan development authorities to see how they actually stack up against each other. We always argue about Tier-1 vs Tier-2 cities, but seeing the numbers visually really puts the reality of our urban planning (or lack thereof) into perspective.

Scroll through for the 20 individual city maps.

Here are a few massive takeaways that stood out to me:

The Gujarat Advantage: Cities like Vadodara, Surat, and Ahmedabad are quietly dominating. Vadodara actually topped this list for GDP per capita ($9,082), completely beating out Bengaluru ($8,521) and Mumbai ($6,916).

The Sprawl vs. The Squeeze: Delhi NCR is an absolute behemoth in terms of sheer area (over 55,000 sq km) and overall GDP ($186B). But because it's so massively spread out, its population density (582 persons/sq km) is a fraction of the incredibly squeezed Kolkata (6,500/sq km) or Mumbai (3,711/sq km).

The Northern Challenge: While satellite cities in the NCR generate massive wealth, it's pretty concerning to see traditional northern hubs like Lucknow, Kanpur, and Patna sitting at the very bottom of the pack for GDP per capita (all under $4,500). There's a severe gap in wealth generation once you leave the immediate capital region.

The Southern Hubs: Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Chennai show a very balanced profile. They have massive overall GDPs, but their expanded metropolitan areas (like BMRDA and HMDA) mean their wealth density isn't as hyper-concentrated and chaotic as Mumbai's MMR.

For now I've used Gemini to generate the images. I'm compiling more data and would most probably spend this weekend going down this rabbit hole and create another post as well with more. Also I'm aware that there have been some mistakes in the maps and names of the areas, so apologies for that.