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Cities · Azerbaijan · capital
Baku, 
Azerbaijan
Bakı
1,977,897 people lived in Baku in 2025. It is the 250th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in Azerbaijan, where it is the capital.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Baku governs, so it may be far from the number the city publishes about itself. How the UN measures a city.
In its own language: Bakı.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Baku grew
Count 10 people in Baku in 1975 and the same count gives 16.3 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 2.1 million people in 2050.
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
Baku through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Baku in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Azerbaijan · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Azerbaijan and its 22 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people. Baku is ringed, in colour; the other cities are grey. Neighbouring countries are outlines.
Area and built-up land · km²
How much land it covers
In 2025, Baku covered 348 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 101 km² of it. That is 51 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 7 by 7 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.1 times its size, and its people have grown by 63%.
How to read this: each pale square is the city's whole area, the strong square inside it the part that is built on; one scale for all three, so a bigger square is more land. Hatched is the UN's projection.
Of every 100 people in Azerbaijan
Its share of Azerbaijan
Of every 100 people in Azerbaijan in 2025, 19 lived in Baku, which is 2.0 million people.
How to read this: shrink Azerbaijan to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Baku; 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
- 246 Mehsi India2,018,610
- 247 Nashik India1,996,763
- 248 Hohhot China1,993,292
- 249 Santa Cruz de la Sierra Bolivia1,980,432
- 250 Baku1,977,897
- 251 Phoenix United States1,972,021
- 252 Sapporo Japan1,964,519
- 253 Jamshedpur India1,956,840
- 254 Minsk Belarus1,950,680
In Azerbaijan, 2025
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 Baku 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 Baku 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