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Chongqing, 
China
7,071,073 people lived in Chongqing in 2025. It is the 51st largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 9th largest in China.
Like every city on this site, Chongqing 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 Chongqing grew
For every 10 people in Chongqing in 1975, there were 46.3 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 6.1 million people in 2050. It passed five million people between 1995 and 2000.
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
Chongqing through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Chongqing in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
China · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: China and its 2,082 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Shanghai). Chongqing is ringed, in colour; the other cities are grey. Neighbouring countries are outlines.
Area and built-up land · km²
How much land it covers
In 2025, Chongqing covered 551 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 117 km² of it. That is 17 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 4 by 4 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 3.9 times its size, and its people are 4.6 times as many.
How to read this: each pale square is the city's whole area, the strong square inside it the part that is built on; one scale for all three, so a bigger square is more land. Hatched is the UN's projection.
Of every 100 people in China
Its share of China
Of every 1,000 people in China in 2025, 5 lived in Chongqing, which is 7.1 million people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in China; the coloured squares live in Chongqing. 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
- 47 Tianjin7,285,342
- 48 Alexandria Egypt7,266,957
- 49 Nagoya Japan7,146,160
- 50 Johannesburg South Africa7,077,175
- 51 Chongqing7,071,073
- 52 Riyadh Saudi Arabia6,916,417
- 53 Surat India6,908,925
- 54 Surabaya Indonesia6,843,503
- 55 Pune India6,817,951
In China, 2025
- 43 Suzhou7,731,101
- 45 Hangzhou7,500,208
- 46 Wuhan7,363,548
- 47 Tianjin7,285,342
- 51 Chongqing7,071,073
- 57 Nanjing6,800,676
- 61 Chaozhou6,407,770
- 64 Chengdu6,139,874
- 67 Shenyang5,702,638
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 Chongqing 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 Chongqing 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