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Baotou, 
China
1,491,964 people lived in Baotou in 2025. It is the 340th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 50th largest in China.
This is the UN's built-up area, drawn from satellite pictures and census maps rather than from the city limits, and the two can be a long way apart. The rule behind it.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Baotou grew
Count 10 people in Baotou in 1975 and the same count gives 21.2 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.5 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 1995 and 2000.
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
Baotou through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Baotou in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
China · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: China and its 2,082 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Shanghai). Baotou 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, Baotou covered 100 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 35 km² of it. That is 24 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.6 times its size, and its people are 2.1 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 China
Its share of China
Of every 1,000 people in China in 2025, 1 lived in Baotou, which is 1.5 million people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in China; the coloured squares live in Baotou. 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
- 336 Kananga Democratic Republic of the Congo1,504,370
- 337 Oakland United States1,503,319
- 338 Batam City Indonesia1,500,354
- 339 Stockholm Sweden1,500,093
- 340 Baotou1,491,964
- 341 Anyang1,489,112
- 342 Moradabad India1,484,611
- 343 Taizhou1,483,994
- 344 Kigali Rwanda1,483,711
In China, 2025
- 291 Nantong1,684,417
- 300 Wuhu1,631,043
- 301 Zibo1,620,676
- 315 Datong1,573,531
- 340 Baotou1,491,964
- 341 Anyang1,489,112
- 343 Taizhou1,483,994
- 347 Xiuying District1,458,377
- 349 Jilin City1,448,955
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 Baotou 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 Baotou 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