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Cobán, 
Guatemala
229,017 people lived in Cobán in 2025. It is the 2564th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 3rd largest in Guatemala.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Cobán governs, so it may be far from the number the city publishes about itself. How the UN measures a city.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Cobán grew
Where Cobán had 10 people in 1975, it had 36.6 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 311,962 people in 2050. On the UN's projection it passes 250,000 people between 2025 and 2030.
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
Cobán through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Cobán in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Guatemala · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Guatemala and its 31 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Guatemala City). Cobán 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, Cobán covered 24 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 4.0 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 2.9 times its size, and its people are 3.7 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 Guatemala
Its share of Guatemala
Of every 100 people in Guatemala in 2025, 1 lived in Cobán, which is 229,017 people.
How to read this: 100 squares, one for every 100th person in Guatemala; the coloured squares live in Cobán. 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
- 2544 Hasilpur Pakistan230,987
- 2548 Cockrell Hill United States230,727
- 2554 Luputa Democratic Republic of the Congo230,128
- 2560 Maymana Afghanistan229,355
- 2564 Cobán229,017
- 2566 Mollar Char Bangladesh228,869
- 2567 Masrakh India228,857
- 2571 Jega Nigeria228,584
- 2574 Puli Khumri Afghanistan228,271
In Guatemala, 2025
- 175 Guatemala City2,837,708
- 1995 Quetzaltenango291,105
- 2564 Cobán229,017
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 Cobán 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 Cobán 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