Topics
Adelaide, 
Australia
879,249 people lived in Adelaide in 2025. It is the 592nd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 5th largest in Australia.
Like every city on this site, Adelaide is counted as a built-up area seen from above rather than as a city government's territory. Why that changes the number.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Adelaide grew
Where Adelaide had 10 people in 1975, it had 19.8 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.0 million people in 2050. On the UN's projection it passes a million people between 2040 and 2045.
projected (after 2025) · how sure the UN is: high moderate low
How to read this: read it left to right, 1975 to 2050, one column every five years, the height being people. Hatching marks the projected years. Below, a strip of the UN's confidence: strong colour where the census maps are recent and detailed, pale where they are not, blank where the place was not counted as a city.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Adelaide through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Adelaide in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Australia · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Adelaide is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of Australia in 2025, 29 in all, led by Sydney, each drawn with an area that matches its people. Countries next door are outlines only.
Area and built-up land · km²
How much land it covers
In 2025, Adelaide covered 429 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 127 km² of it. That is 144 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 12 by 12 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 73%, and its people are 2 times as many.
How to read this: pale is the whole of the city's land; the stronger square inside it is what is actually built on. The three are drawn to the same scale, so a larger square really is more land, and hatching means the year is the UN's projection rather than a count.
Of every 100 people in Australia
Its share of Australia
Of every 100 people in Australia in 2025, 3 lived in Adelaide, which is 879,249 people.
How to read this: 100 squares, one for every 100th person in Australia; the coloured squares live in Adelaide. The grey rest live in other cities, in towns or in the countryside.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 588 Ulsan South Korea881,858
- 589 Ufa Russia880,583
- 590 Querétaro Mexico880,361
- 591 Voronezh Russia879,892
- 592 Adelaide879,249
- 593 Sembawang Singapore878,551
- 594 Firozabad India878,282
- 595 Saint Petersburg United States877,183
- 596 Chenghai China875,988
In Australia, 2025
- 107 Sydney4,150,917
- 127 Melbourne3,639,893
- 474 Perth1,079,374
- 476 Brisbane1,071,628
- 592 Adelaide879,249
- 1399 Point Cook404,501
- 1926 Gold Coast298,750
How to read this: the number before each name is its place among all 12,138 cities in the world in 2025; bars are people, on one scale per list. Only cities that reach 300,000 people have a page here, so a gap in the numbers is a smaller city.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Adelaide are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 1975 to 2025, then projection to 2050. Projected years are drawn hatched, and the UN publishes no range of uncertainty for a city. What a city means here, how the UN measures one, and why that number can differ from the one Adelaide publishes about itself: how the figures here are put together.
Sources: UN WUP 2025 · Natural Earth · flag-icons. Every source, its licence and how to cite it →
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries