This paper provides a comprehensive review of IoT-based smart city development and management, addressing key questions about architecture, implementation, and impact. It discusses a generalized IoT-based smart city architecture, evaluates metrics for assessing smart city projects, explores relevant standards, and examines challenges in implementing smart cities. The study also highlights real-world applications of IoT in urban management, emphasizing their advantages, practical impacts, and challenges. The research methodology involves addressing six key questions to explore IoT architecture, impacts on efficiency and sustainability, insights from global examples, critical standards, success metrics, and major deployment challenges. These findings offer valuable guidance for practitioners and policymakers in developing effective and sustainable smart city initiatives. The study significantly contributes to academia by enhancing knowledge, offering practical insights, and highlighting the importance of interdisciplinary research for urban innovation and sustainability, guiding future initiatives towards more effective smart city solutions. The paper also discusses the architecture of smart cities, including the perception, network, and application layers, and explores various IoT-based applications such as smart grids, intelligent transportation systems, smart lighting, smart parking, smart water distribution, smart waste management, smart manufacturing, smart healthcare, smart surveillance, smart buildings, and smart food distribution. It presents case studies of smart cities worldwide, including New York City, Dallas, San Francisco, Denver, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Las Vegas, Busan, Seoul, Amsterdam, Padova, Reykjavik, and Madrid. The paper also examines smart city standards, including ISO principles and specific standards used in different sectors of smart cities. The study concludes that IoT-based smart cities offer significant benefits in terms of efficiency, sustainability, and quality of life, but also present challenges that need to be addressed through interdisciplinary research and collaboration.This paper provides a comprehensive review of IoT-based smart city development and management, addressing key questions about architecture, implementation, and impact. It discusses a generalized IoT-based smart city architecture, evaluates metrics for assessing smart city projects, explores relevant standards, and examines challenges in implementing smart cities. The study also highlights real-world applications of IoT in urban management, emphasizing their advantages, practical impacts, and challenges. The research methodology involves addressing six key questions to explore IoT architecture, impacts on efficiency and sustainability, insights from global examples, critical standards, success metrics, and major deployment challenges. These findings offer valuable guidance for practitioners and policymakers in developing effective and sustainable smart city initiatives. The study significantly contributes to academia by enhancing knowledge, offering practical insights, and highlighting the importance of interdisciplinary research for urban innovation and sustainability, guiding future initiatives towards more effective smart city solutions. The paper also discusses the architecture of smart cities, including the perception, network, and application layers, and explores various IoT-based applications such as smart grids, intelligent transportation systems, smart lighting, smart parking, smart water distribution, smart waste management, smart manufacturing, smart healthcare, smart surveillance, smart buildings, and smart food distribution. It presents case studies of smart cities worldwide, including New York City, Dallas, San Francisco, Denver, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Las Vegas, Busan, Seoul, Amsterdam, Padova, Reykjavik, and Madrid. The paper also examines smart city standards, including ISO principles and specific standards used in different sectors of smart cities. The study concludes that IoT-based smart cities offer significant benefits in terms of efficiency, sustainability, and quality of life, but also present challenges that need to be addressed through interdisciplinary research and collaboration.