Topics
Barcelona, 
Spain
3,982,704 people lived in Barcelona in 2025. It is the 114th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 2nd largest in Spain.
Like every city on this site, Barcelona 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 Barcelona grew
Count 10 people in Barcelona in 1975 and the same count gives 17.8 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 4.1 million people in 2050.
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
Barcelona through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Barcelona in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Spain · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Spain and its 84 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Madrid). Barcelona 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, Barcelona covered 454 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 111 km² of it. That is 28 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 85%, and its people have grown by 78%.
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 Spain
Its share of Spain
Of every 100 people in Spain in 2025, 8 lived in Barcelona, which is 4.0 million people.
How to read this: 100 squares, one for every 100th person in Spain; the coloured squares live in Barcelona. 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
- 110 Jaipur India4,071,754
- 111 Sana'a Yemen4,018,856
- 112 Taiyuan China4,005,816
- 113 Puning China3,989,322
- 114 Barcelona3,982,704
- 115 Houston United States3,955,046
- 116 Monterrey Mexico3,938,015
- 117 Tashkent Uzbekistan3,935,793
- 118 Antananarivo Madagascar3,916,219
In Spain, 2025
- 72 Madrid5,583,601
- 114 Barcelona3,982,704
- 366 Valencia1,390,045
- 721 Bilbao741,795
- 769 Seville699,504
- 934 Zaragoza585,533
- 1057 Málaga521,854
- 1173 Palma de Mallorca473,499
- 1428 Alicante397,948
How to read this: names are in order of size, the leading number being each city's rank among all 12,138 in 2025; the bars share a scale within a list. A jump in the ranks means a city under 300,000 people, which is not given a page here.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Barcelona 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 Barcelona 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