Topics
Calgary, 
Canada
1,197,110 people lived in Calgary in 2025. It is the 431st largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 4th largest in Canada.
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 Calgary grew
Where Calgary had 10 people in 1985, it had 96.3 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.6 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 2015 and 2020. The UN first counts it as a city in 1985, 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
Calgary through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Calgary in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Canada · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 56 cities in Canada in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Toronto. The ringed dot in colour is Calgary; 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, Calgary covered 386 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 77 km² of it. That is 64 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 8 by 8 metres. Since 1985, its built-up land has grown to 7.3 times its size, and its people are 9.6 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 Canada
Its share of Canada
Of every 100 people in Canada in 2025, 3 lived in Calgary, which is 1.2 million people.
How to read this: 100 squares, one for every 100th person in Canada; the coloured squares live in Calgary. 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
- 427 Pekanbaru Indonesia1,208,872
- 428 Kitakyushu Japan1,206,731
- 429 Lyon France1,202,985
- 430 Prague Czechia1,197,765
- 431 Calgary1,197,110
- 432 Nizhny Novgorod Russia1,196,944
- 433 Jalandhar India1,192,763
- 434 Oran Algeria1,192,410
- 435 Hiroshima Japan1,185,788
In Canada, 2025
- 74 Toronto5,494,431
- 187 Montreal2,668,723
- 286 Vancouver1,707,865
- 431 Calgary1,197,110
- 524 Edmonton981,522
- 796 Winnipeg679,037
- 900 Ottawa605,121
- 1134 Quebec490,451
- 1226 Surrey454,230
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 Calgary are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 1985 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 Calgary 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