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Brasília, 
Brazil
1,521,148 people lived in Brasília in 2025. It is the 328th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 14th largest in Brazil, where it is the capital.
The UN measures every city in the world the same way, by where the buildings are rather than where the boundary runs, so this figure and Brasília's own can differ widely. What counts as a city here.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Brasília grew
Count 10 people in Brasília in 1975 and the same count gives 172.8 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.8 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 2005 and 2010.
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
Brasília through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Brasília in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Brazil · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Brasília is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of Brazil in 2025, 356 in all, led by São Paulo, 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, Brasília covered 234 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 61 km² of it. That is 40 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 6 by 6 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 5.8 times its size, and its people are 17.3 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 1,000 people in Brazil in 2025, 7 lived in Brasília, which is 1.5 million people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in Brazil; the coloured squares live in Brasília. The grey rest live in other cities, in towns or in the countryside.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 324 Mandalay Myanmar1,541,309
- 325 Manama Bahrain1,538,872
- 326 Surakarta Indonesia1,538,599
- 327 Panama City Panama1,527,393
- 328 Brasília1,521,148
- 329 Dallas United States1,521,118
- 330 Gorakhpur India1,519,206
- 331 Daejeon South Korea1,517,299
- 332 Jodhpur India1,515,910
In Brazil, 2025
- 233 Belém2,180,454
- 281 Porto Alegre1,755,917
- 292 Sao Goncalo1,679,246
- 299 Campinas1,631,432
- 328 Brasília1,521,148
- 404 São Luís1,264,379
- 419 Vitória1,226,500
- 471 Natal1,089,473
- 482 João Pessoa1,064,481
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 Brasília 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 Brasília 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