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Barishal, 
Bangladesh
457,323 people lived in Barishal in 2025. It is the 1215th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 20th largest in Bangladesh.
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 Barishal grew
Barishal had about as many people in 2025 as in 1975.
On the UN's projection it will have 422,187 people in 2050.
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
Barishal through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Barishal in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Bangladesh · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 233 cities in Bangladesh in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Dhaka. The ringed dot in colour is Barishal; 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, Barishal covered 48 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 7.5 km² of it. That is 16 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 4 by 4 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 5.8 times its size, and its people are about 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 Bangladesh
Its share of Bangladesh
Of every 1,000 people in Bangladesh in 2025, 3 lived in Barishal, which is 457,323 people.
How to read this: shrink Bangladesh to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Barishal; 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
- 1211 Elenga459,645
- 1212 Atlanta United States458,225
- 1213 Jhelum Pakistan457,793
- 1214 Al Abbasa al Sharqiya Egypt457,678
- 1215 Barishal457,323
- 1216 Jiaozhou China457,288
- 1217 Batman Türkiye456,902
- 1218 Saharsa India456,879
- 1219 Irapuato Mexico456,628
In Bangladesh, 2025
- 950 Jashore578,026
- 1095 Belkuchi505,615
- 1182 Cox's Bazar470,100
- 1211 Elenga459,645
- 1215 Barishal457,323
- 1245 Sirajganj446,632
- 1251 Tangail444,219
- 1283 Pabna436,119
- 1301 Chandpur430,144
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 Barishal 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 Barishal 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