Topics
Bologna, 
Italy
443,849 people lived in Bologna in 2025. It is the 1253rd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 8th largest in Italy.
Like every city on this site, Bologna 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 Bologna grew
Bologna had about as many people in 2025 as in 1975.
On the UN's projection it will have 416,934 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
Bologna through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Bologna in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Italy · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 95 cities in Italy in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Naples. The ringed dot in colour is Bologna; 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, Bologna covered 90 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 21 km² of it. That is 46 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 7 by 7 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 54%, and its people are about as many.
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 Italy
Its share of Italy
Of every 1,000 people in Italy in 2025, 8 lived in Bologna, which is 443,849 people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares stand for everyone in Italy, one square for every 1,000th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Bologna's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 1249 Chengde China444,971
- 1250 Hawassa Ethiopia444,909
- 1251 Tangail Bangladesh444,219
- 1252 Chaoyang China443,864
- 1253 Bologna443,849
- 1254 Abéché Chad443,793
- 1255 Thanjavur India443,736
- 1256 Irkutsk Russia442,807
- 1257 Bishoftu Ethiopia442,776
In Italy, 2025
- 447 Turin1,150,975
- 812 Palermo667,442
- 1042 Genoa532,509
- 1229 Catania453,376
- 1253 Bologna443,849
- 1298 Florence430,806
- 1426 Bergamo398,050
- 1893 Busto Arsizio302,759
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 Bologna 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 Bologna 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