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Aracaju, 
Brazil
859,845 people lived in Aracaju in 2025. It is the 608th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 22nd largest in Brazil.
Like every city on this site, Aracaju 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 Aracaju grew
For every 10 people in Aracaju in 1975, there were 87.9 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 871,895 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 1985 and 1990.
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
Aracaju through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Aracaju in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Brazil · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 356 cities in Brazil in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being São Paulo. The ringed dot in colour is Aracaju; the grey dots are the rest. The outlines around them are neighbouring countries.
Area and built-up land · km²
How much land it covers
In 2025, Aracaju covered 134 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 31 km² of it. That is 37 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 6 by 6 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 3.2 times its size, and its people are 8.8 times as many.
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 Brazil
Its share of Brazil
Of every 1,000 people in Brazil in 2025, 4 lived in Aracaju, which is 859,845 people.
How to read this: shrink Brazil to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Aracaju; 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
- 604 Bata Equatorial Guinea863,383
- 605 Bokaro India862,593
- 606 Guntur India862,068
- 607 Valparaíso Chile861,145
- 608 Aracaju859,845
- 609 Xinxiang China858,975
- 610 Kavar Iran857,280
- 611 Aguascalientes Mexico856,387
- 612 Jinzhou China854,575
In Brazil, 2025
- 482 João Pessoa1,064,481
- 496 Santos1,027,752
- 499 Maceió1,023,645
- 559 Teresina929,795
- 608 Aracaju859,845
- 631 Campo Grande833,403
- 663 Cuiabá798,772
- 782 Sorocaba689,775
- 790 Florianópolis682,065
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 Aracaju 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 Aracaju 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