Topics
Cities · Netherlands · capital
Amsterdam, 
Netherlands
1,235,985 people lived in Amsterdam in 2025. It is the 413th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in the Netherlands, where it is the capital.
Like every city on this site, Amsterdam 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 Amsterdam grew
For every 10 people in Amsterdam in 1975, there were 13.3 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.3 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 2000 and 2005.
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
Amsterdam through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Amsterdam in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Netherlands · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Amsterdam is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of the Netherlands in 2025, 44 in all, 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, Amsterdam covered 291 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 74 km² of it. That is 60 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 8 by 8 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.4 times its size, and its people have grown by 33%.
How to read this: the outer pale square stands for all the land the city covers, and the solid square inside it for the part with buildings, roads and the like on it. All three squares share a scale, so you can compare them by eye. A hatched one is a year the UN has projected.
Of every 100 people in the Netherlands
Its share of the Netherlands
Of every 100 people in the Netherlands in 2025, 7 lived in Amsterdam, which is 1.2 million people.
How to read this: shrink the Netherlands to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Amsterdam; 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
- 409 Sylhet Bangladesh1,242,548
- 410 Montevideo Uruguay1,240,244
- 411 Tripoli Libya1,239,823
- 412 Gyanpur India1,237,249
- 413 Amsterdam1,235,985
- 414 Zhangzhou China1,232,911
- 415 Kota India1,232,364
- 416 Copenhagen Denmark1,229,370
- 417 Torreón Mexico1,227,850
In the Netherlands, 2025
How to read this: names are in order of size, the leading number being each city's rank among all 12,138 in 2025; the bars share a scale within a list. A jump in the ranks means a city under 300,000 people, which is not given a page here.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Amsterdam 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 Amsterdam 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