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Atlanta, 
United States
458,225 people lived in Atlanta in 2025. It is the 1212th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 41st largest in the United States.
Like every city on this site, Atlanta 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 Atlanta grew
Count 10 people in Atlanta in 1995 and the same count gives 81.5 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 688,996 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 1995 and 2000. The UN first counts it as a city in 1995, when it passed 50,000 people.
projected (after 2025) · how sure the UN is: high moderate low
How to read this: each column is one of the UN's five-yearly estimates, 1975 through 2050, and taller means more people. Where a column is hatched the year has not happened yet. The strip under the columns is the UN's own confidence in each figure, palest where it is least sure; where it is blank the city was not on the list at all.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Atlanta through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Atlanta in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
United States · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 348 cities in the United States in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being New York City. The ringed dot in colour is Atlanta; 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, Atlanta covered 198 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 40 km² of it. That is 88 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 9 by 9 metres. Since 1995, its built-up land has grown to 7.3 times its size, and its people are 8.2 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 the United States
Its share of the United States
Of every 1,000 people in the United States in 2025, 1 lived in Atlanta, which is 458,225 people.
How to read this: shrink the United States to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Atlanta; 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
- 1208 Purnia India461,043
- 1209 Nagercoil India460,826
- 1210 Kota Bharu Malaysia460,445
- 1211 Elenga Bangladesh459,645
- 1212 Atlanta458,225
- 1213 Jhelum Pakistan457,793
- 1214 Al Abbasa al Sharqiya Egypt457,678
- 1215 Barishal Bangladesh457,323
- 1216 Jiaozhou China457,288
In the United States, 2025
- 1098 Bakersfield503,676
- 1136 Provo488,429
- 1165 Orlando477,249
- 1202 West Valley City463,325
- 1212 Atlanta458,225
- 1284 Sterling Heights435,980
- 1302 Providence429,694
- 1329 Tucson422,107
- 1356 Escondido415,167
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 Atlanta are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 1995 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 Atlanta 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