Topics
Cixi, 
China
2,177,489 people lived in Cixi in 2025. It is the 234th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 39th largest in China.
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 Cixi'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 Cixi grew
Count 10 people in Cixi in 1980 and the same count gives 411.7 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 2.7 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 1995 and 2000. 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
Cixi through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Cixi in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
China · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 2,082 cities in China in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Shanghai. The ringed dot in colour is Cixi; 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, Cixi covered 508 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 142 km² of it. That is 65 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 8 by 8 metres. Since 1985, its built-up land has grown to 64.6 times its size, and its people are 19.4 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, 2 lived in Cixi, which is 2.2 million people.
How to read this: shrink China to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Cixi; 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
- 230 Doha Qatar2,193,708
- 231 Kaohsiung Taiwan2,187,455
- 232 Las Vegas United States2,183,655
- 233 Belém Brazil2,180,454
- 234 Cixi2,177,489
- 235 San José Costa Rica2,171,213
- 236 Madurai India2,138,746
- 237 Palembang Indonesia2,132,576
- 238 Harare Zimbabwe2,117,195
In China, 2025
- 189 Changzhou2,649,836
- 193 Wuxi2,613,100
- 215 Tangshan2,286,763
- 218 Lanzhou2,272,104
- 234 Cixi2,177,489
- 248 Hohhot1,993,292
- 269 Putian1,871,858
- 277 Yinchuan1,792,788
- 278 Xiamen City1,788,492
How to read this: the figure in front of a name is where that city stands among the 12,138 cities the UN counted in 2025, and each bar is its people, on one scale per list. Numbers are missing where a city has fewer than 300,000 people and so has no page of its own.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Cixi 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 Cixi 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