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Cabanatuan, 
Philippines
272,890 people lived in Cabanatuan in 2025. It is the 2132nd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 22nd largest in the Philippines.
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 Cabanatuan'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 Cabanatuan grew
Count 10 people in Cabanatuan in 1980 and the same count gives 50.5 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 320,114 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2015 and 2020. The UN first counts it as a city in 1980, when it passed 50,000 people.
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
Cabanatuan through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Cabanatuan in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Philippines · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 114 cities in the Philippines in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Manila. The ringed dot in colour is Cabanatuan; 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, Cabanatuan covered 58 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 8.0 km² of it. That is 29 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1980, its built-up land has grown to 3.5 times its size, and its people are 5.1 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 the Philippines
Its share of the Philippines
Of every 1,000 people in the Philippines in 2025, 2 lived in Cabanatuan, which is 272,890 people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares stand for everyone in the Philippines, one square for every 1,000th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Cabanatuan's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 2123 Yibin China273,660
- 2124 Asaka Uzbekistan273,582
- 2128 Saskatoon Canada273,454
- 2130 Sanmenxia China272,970
- 2132 Cabanatuan272,890
- 2133 Nzérékoré Guinea272,866
- 2134 Dalla India272,778
- 2138 Guna India271,913
- 2139 Gunung Lingkas Indonesia271,868
In the Philippines, 2025
- 2042 Tacloban285,095
- 2097 Binangonan276,785
- 2099 Legazpi276,662
- 2101 San Pablo276,250
- 2132 Cabanatuan272,890
- 2394 Panabo244,050
- 4537 Marawi134,181
- 8410 Jolo74,210
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 Cabanatuan are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 1980 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 Cabanatuan 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