Topics
Boston, 
United States
1,639,797 people lived in Boston in 2025. It is the 296th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 14th largest in the United States.
Like every city on this site, Boston 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 Boston grew
Count 10 people in Boston in 1975 and the same count gives 13.6 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.6 million 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
Boston through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Boston in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
United States · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Boston is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of the United States in 2025, 348 in all, led by New York City, each drawn with an area that matches its people. Countries next door are outlines only.
Area and built-up land · km²
How much land it covers
In 2025, Boston covered 472 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 102 km² of it. That is 62 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 8 by 8 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 28%, and its people have grown by 36%.
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 the United States
Its share of the United States
Of every 1,000 people in the United States in 2025, 5 lived in Boston, which is 1.6 million people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares stand for everyone in the United States, one square for every 1,000th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Boston's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 292 Sao Goncalo Brazil1,679,246
- 293 Mosul Iraq1,665,214
- 294 Pointe-Noire Republic of the Congo1,662,537
- 295 Visakhapatnam India1,641,957
- 296 Boston1,639,797
- 297 Ahwaz Iran1,639,321
- 298 Bareilly India1,635,214
- 299 Campinas Brazil1,631,432
- 300 Wuhu China1,631,043
In the United States, 2025
- 232 Las Vegas2,183,655
- 251 Phoenix1,972,021
- 260 San Diego1,915,114
- 290 San Antonio1,686,163
- 296 Boston1,639,797
- 329 Dallas1,521,118
- 333 Sacramento1,514,661
- 334 Austin1,513,032
- 337 Oakland1,503,319
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 Boston 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 Boston 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