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Belo Horizonte, 
Brazil
4,162,814 people lived in Belo Horizonte in 2025. It is the 105th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 3rd largest in Brazil.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Belo Horizonte governs, so it may be far from the number the city publishes about itself. How the UN measures a city.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Belo Horizonte grew
Count 10 people in Belo Horizonte in 1975 and the same count gives 32.2 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: 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
Belo Horizonte through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Belo Horizonte in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Brazil · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 356 cities in Brazil in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being São Paulo. The ringed dot in colour is Belo Horizonte; 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, Belo Horizonte covered 589 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 201 km² of it. That is 48 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 7 by 7 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 78%, and its people are 3.2 times as many.
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 Brazil
Its share of Brazil
Of every 100 people in Brazil in 2025, 2 lived in Belo Horizonte, which is 4.2 million people.
How to read this: shrink Brazil to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Belo Horizonte; 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
- 101 Kuwait City Kuwait4,265,132
- 102 Medan Indonesia4,245,895
- 103 Bamako Mali4,244,881
- 104 Luxor Egypt4,188,023
- 105 Belo Horizonte4,162,814
- 106 Wenzhou China4,158,195
- 107 Sydney Australia4,150,917
- 108 Guadalajara Mexico4,135,440
- 109 Douala Cameroon4,104,516
In Brazil, 2025
- 13 São Paulo18,949,790
- 35 Rio de Janeiro9,500,336
- 105 Belo Horizonte4,162,814
- 124 Recife3,691,196
- 149 Fortaleza3,244,260
- 158 Salvador3,135,157
- 200 Curitiba2,475,352
- 214 Goiânia2,320,596
- 217 Manaus2,277,352
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 Belo Horizonte 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 Belo Horizonte 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