Topics
Charlotte, 
United States
221,000 people lived in Charlotte in 2025. It is the 2670th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 90th largest in the United States.
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 Charlotte'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 Charlotte grew
For every 10 people in Charlotte in 2010, there were 30.5 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 348,132 people in 2050. On the UN's projection it passes 250,000 people between 2030 and 2035. The UN first counts it as a city in 2010, when it passed 50,000 people.
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
Charlotte through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Charlotte in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
United States · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 348 cities in the United States in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being New York City. The ringed dot in colour is Charlotte; 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, Charlotte covered 107 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 20 km² of it. That is 89 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 9 by 9 metres. Since 2010, its built-up land has grown to 3.5 times its size, and its people are 3.1 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 the United States
Its share of the United States
Of every 1,000 people in the United States in 2025, 1 lived in Charlotte, which is 221,000 people.
How to read this: shrink the United States to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Charlotte; the grey ones are everybody else, in other cities, in towns and out in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 2657 Toba Tek Singh Pakistan222,349
- 2661 Hossana Ethiopia221,895
- 2662 Sahebganj India221,858
- 2663 Mzuzu Malawi221,840
- 2670 Charlotte221,000
- 2674 Az Zubayr Iraq220,737
- 2675 Rustenburg South Africa220,723
- 2679 Gwoza Nigeria220,641
- 2680 Chlef Algeria220,634
In the United States, 2025
- 2344 Edgecliff Village249,260
- 2384 Cinco Ranch244,538
- 2446 Corpus Christi239,855
- 2548 Cockrell Hill230,727
- 2670 Charlotte221,000
- 2992 Lincoln Park200,040
- 3406 Dearborn Heights177,423
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 Charlotte are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 2010 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 Charlotte 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