Topics
Biratnagar, 
Nepal
398,453 people lived in Biratnagar in 2025. It is the 1420th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 2nd largest in Nepal.
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 Biratnagar grew
Count 10 people in Biratnagar in 1975 and the same count gives 32.7 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 431,981 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 1990 and 1995.
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
Biratnagar through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Biratnagar in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Nepal · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 19 cities in Nepal in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Kathmandu. The ringed dot in colour is Biratnagar; 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, Biratnagar covered 70 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 12 km² of it. That is 29 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 7.3 times its size, and its people are 3.3 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 Nepal
Its share of Nepal
Of every 100 people in Nepal in 2025, 1 lived in Biratnagar, which is 398,453 people.
How to read this: shrink Nepal to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Biratnagar; 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
- 1416 Guarenas Venezuela399,477
- 1417 Manisa Türkiye399,014
- 1418 Wuzhou China398,593
- 1419 Stockton United States398,470
- 1420 Biratnagar398,453
- 1421 Pratapgarh India398,315
- 1422 Sanya China398,270
- 1423 Pingliang China398,221
- 1424 Strasbourg France398,175
In Nepal, 2025
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 Biratnagar 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 Biratnagar 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