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Barnaul, 
Russia
502,491 people lived in Barnaul in 2025. It is the 1102nd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 23rd largest in Russia.
Like every city on this site, Barnaul 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 Barnaul grew
Count 10 people in Barnaul in 1975 and the same count gives 7.8 in 2025 — the city lost people.
On the UN's projection it will have 477,162 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
Barnaul through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Barnaul in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Russia · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 254 cities in Russia in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Moscow. The ringed dot in colour is Barnaul; 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, Barnaul covered 116 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 33 km² of it. That is 65 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 8 by 8 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 84%, and its people have fallen by 22%.
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 Russia
Its share of Russia
Of every 1,000 people in Russia in 2025, 3 lived in Barnaul, which is 502,491 people.
How to read this: shrink Russia to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Barnaul; 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
- 1098 Bakersfield United States503,676
- 1099 Nha Trang Vietnam503,051
- 1100 Anqing China503,036
- 1101 Oaxaca de Juárez Mexico502,534
- 1102 Barnaul502,491
- 1103 Lakhimpur India501,540
- 1104 Dairut Egypt501,258
- 1105 Ijebu-Ode Nigeria500,036
- 1106 Anshun China499,794
In Russia, 2025
- 962 Krasnoyarsk569,604
- 993 Yaroslavl553,086
- 1014 Khabarovsk543,422
- 1054 Astrakhan524,085
- 1102 Barnaul502,491
- 1108 Naberezhnye Chelny498,625
- 1163 Tomsk477,632
- 1180 Kemerovo470,175
- 1191 Ryazan466,086
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 Barnaul 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 Barnaul 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