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Alicante, 
Spain
397,948 people lived in Alicante in 2025. It is the 1428th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 9th largest in Spain.
Like every city on this site, Alicante 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 Alicante grew
For every 10 people in Alicante in 1975, there were 23.1 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 391,844 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 1980 and 1985.
projected (after 2025) · how sure the UN is: high moderate low
How to read this: one column every five years, 1975 to 2050; its height is the number of people. Hatched columns are the UN's projection. The thin strip beneath says how sure the UN is of each figure: the stronger the colour, the surer. A blank means the place was not on the UN's list of cities that year.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Alicante through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Alicante in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Spain · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Alicante is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of Spain in 2025, 84 in all, led by Madrid, 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, Alicante covered 73 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 15 km² of it. That is 38 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 6 by 6 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.2 times its size, and its people are 2.3 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 Spain
Its share of Spain
Of every 1,000 people in Spain in 2025, 8 lived in Alicante, which is 397,948 people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in Spain; the coloured squares live in Alicante. 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
- 1424 Strasbourg France398,175
- 1425 Volta Redonda Brazil398,107
- 1426 Bergamo Italy398,050
- 1427 Potiskum Nigeria397,981
- 1428 Alicante397,948
- 1429 Heze China397,886
- 1430 Madiun Indonesia397,871
- 1431 Mit Habib Egypt397,104
- 1432 Dinajpur Bangladesh396,235
In Spain, 2025
- 769 Seville699,504
- 934 Zaragoza585,533
- 1057 Málaga521,854
- 1173 Palma de Mallorca473,499
- 1428 Alicante397,948
- 1489 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria381,670
- 1558 Granada367,226
- 1592 Santa Cruz de Tenerife357,753
- 1735 Murcia330,966
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 Alicante 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 Alicante 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