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Mega Manila is a megalopolis on the island of Luzon in the Philippines. There are varying definitions of the megalopolis, but it is generally seen as encompassing the administrative regions of Central Luzon, Calabarzon, and Metro Manila. On some occasions, most parts of the administrative region of Mimaropa is also included.
It is frequently used in the press, advertising, television, and radio to refer to provinces bound to Manila, in contrast to the term Greater Manila Area, which is academically used to describe the urbanization process that has long spilled out of Metro Manila's borders, also known as the urban area. Mapping out the built-up area around Manila requires finer granularity than the more generic term Mega Manila.
It is also being used more and more recently in planning for infrastructure projects by the government, particularly by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
Mega Manila is used in general reference to the relationship of Metro Manila to the surrounding provinces. It references only provinces and not the exact settlement patterns of cities, towns, and barangays, which may be urban, suburban, mountainous, or rural areas that are still part of provinces close enough to Manila to be lumped into the definition.
Mega Manila's 2015 population was projected at 40,368,979 or 40% of the country's population, and covers roughly half of Luzon, with an area of 52,097.66 square kilometers, including many rural areas.
Notably, these collection of areas is also known as the Greater Manila Area. Meanwhile, the NEDA study, which is a collaboration with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), considers Metro Manila, Central Luzon, and Calabarzon as the Greater Capital Region (GCR).
This Nielsen defined area has a higher ownership of televisions per household anywhere in the country due to its relative economic prosperity as compared to other areas in the country. Radio ratings agency Radio Research Council (provided by KBP) also provide measurement of audience ratings.
The stricter Nielsen definition closer reflects the built-up area surrounding Manila than the PIA definition, Yet even the Nielsen definition of Mega Manila cannot be merely equated to the built-up area; the Nielsen definition includes significant undeveloped forested areas, while completely excluding contiguous developed settlements in such places like northern Batangas. Thus the academic definition as used for urban studies for built-up area surrounding Manila requires yet another term (e.g. Greater Manila Area) to disambiguate from the already used terms Mega Manila and Metro Manila.
| +Comparison of definitions by source ! rowspan="2" | Source ! rowspan="2" | Term ! rowspan="2" | Metro Manila ! colspan="7" | Central Luzon ! colspan="5" | Calabarzon ! colspan="5" | Mimaropa | |||||||||||||
| PIA | Mega Manila | X | |||||||||||||||||
| AGB Nielsen | |||||||||||||||||||
| Kantar Media | |||||||||||||||||||
| NEDA, JICA | |||||||||||||||||||
| — | Greater Manila Area | ||||||||||||||||||
| NEDA, JICA | Greater Capital Region |
| 143.8 |
| 65.2 |
| 50.6 |
| 259.6 |
| Metro Manila | 16 | 1 | 13,484,462 | |||
| Central Luzon | Aurora | 0 | 0 | 8 | 235,750 | |
| Bataan | 1 | 11 | 853,373 | |||
| Bulacan | 3 | 21 | 3,708,890 | |||
| Nueva Ecija | 5 | 27 | 2,310,134 | |||
| Pampanga | 1 | Angeles City | 2 | 19 | 2,437,709 | |
| Tarlac | 0 | 1 | 17 | 1,503,456 | ||
| Zambales | 1 | Olongapo | 0 | 13 | 649,615 | |
| Calabarzon | Batangas | 0 | 5 | 29 | 2,908,494 | |
| Cavite | 7 | 16 | 4,344,829 | |||
| Laguna | 6 | 24 | 3,382,193 | |||
| Rizal | 1 | 13 | 3,330,143 | |||
| Quezon | 1 | Lucena | 0 | 39 | 1,950,459 | |
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