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Aktau, 
Kazakhstan
310,607 people lived in Aktau in 2025. It is the 1850th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 6th largest in Kazakhstan.
Like every city on this site, Aktau 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 Aktau grew
Where Aktau had 10 people in 2000, it had 46.7 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 664,603 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2020 and 2025. The UN first counts it as a city in 2000, when it passed 50,000 people.
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
Aktau through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Aktau in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Kazakhstan · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Kazakhstan and its 34 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Almaty). Aktau is ringed, in colour; the other cities are grey. Neighbouring countries are outlines.
Area and built-up land · km²
How much land it covers
In 2025, Aktau covered 82 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 22 km² of it. That is 69 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 8 by 8 metres. Since 2000, its built-up land has grown to 5.7 times its size, and its people are 4.7 times as many.
How to read this: each pale square is the city's whole area, the strong square inside it the part that is built on; one scale for all three, so a bigger square is more land. Hatched is the UN's projection.
Of every 100 people in Kazakhstan
Its share of Kazakhstan
Of every 100 people in Kazakhstan in 2025, 1 lived in Aktau, which is 310,607 people.
How to read this: shrink Kazakhstan to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Aktau; the grey ones are everybody else, in other cities, in towns and out in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 1846 Pachuca Mexico310,805
- 1847 Brno Czechia310,796
- 1848 Cluj-Napoca Romania310,650
- 1849 Gorgan Iran310,644
- 1850 Aktau310,607
- 1851 Campos dos Goytacazes Brazil310,590
- 1852 Sungai Petani Malaysia310,566
- 1853 Emeishan China310,503
- 1854 Kanggye North Korea310,432
In Kazakhstan, 2025
- 437 Shymkent1,184,337
- 481 Astana1,065,387
- 1351 Aktobe416,455
- 1831 Karaganda313,529
- 1850 Aktau310,607
- 1924 Semey298,847
- 2322 Kyzylorda250,557
- 3335 Taraz180,844
- 3531 Zhanaozen171,827
How to read this: the figure in front of a name is where that city stands among the 12,138 cities the UN counted in 2025, and each bar is its people, on one scale per list. Numbers are missing where a city has fewer than 300,000 people and so has no page of its own.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Aktau are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 2000 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 Aktau 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