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Ash Sharai, 
Saudi Arabia
244,064 people lived in Ash Sharai in 2025. It is the 2393rd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 12th largest in Saudi Arabia.
The UN measures every city in the world the same way, by where the buildings are rather than where the boundary runs, so this figure and Ash Sharai's own can differ widely. What counts as a city here.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Ash Sharai grew
Where Ash Sharai had 10 people in 2000, it had 45 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 389,790 people in 2050. On the UN's projection it passes 250,000 people between 2025 and 2030. 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: 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
Ash Sharai through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Ash Sharai in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Saudi Arabia · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 44 cities in Saudi Arabia in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Riyadh. The ringed dot in colour is Ash Sharai; 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, Ash Sharai covered 45 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 11 km² of it. That is 45 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 7 by 7 metres. Since 2000, its built-up land has grown to 2.9 times its size, and its people are 4.5 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 Saudi Arabia
Its share of Saudi Arabia
Of every 1,000 people in Saudi Arabia in 2025, 7 lived in Ash Sharai, which is 244,064 people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in Saudi Arabia; the coloured squares live in Ash Sharai. 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
- 2381 Khairpur Pakistan244,838
- 2384 Cinco Ranch United States244,538
- 2388 Subang Indonesia244,383
- 2389 Kousseri Cameroon244,247
- 2393 Ash Sharai244,064
- 2394 Panabo Philippines244,050
- 2397 Qena Egypt243,801
- 2398 El Senbellawein Egypt243,779
- 2400 Sawai Madhopur India243,561
In Saudi Arabia, 2025
- 1113 Khamis Mushayt497,246
- 1151 At Ta'if481,818
- 1895 Hafar Al-Batin302,534
- 2266 Zahrat Laban257,467
- 2393 Ash Sharai244,064
- 2479 Ha'il236,744
- 2859 `Ar`ar208,320
- 3025 Unaizah197,665
- 3079 Buraydah195,152
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 Ash Sharai 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 Ash Sharai 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