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Cologne, 
Germany
1,125,292 people lived in Cologne in 2025. It is the 459th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 5th largest in Germany.
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 Cologne grew
Where Cologne had 10 people in 1975, it had 13 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.1 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 2010 and 2015.
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
Cologne through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Cologne in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Germany · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 100 cities in Germany in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Berlin. The ringed dot in colour is Cologne; 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, Cologne covered 285 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 66 km² of it. That is 58 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 8 by 8 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 67%, and its people have grown by 30%.
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 Germany
Its share of Germany
Of every 100 people in Germany in 2025, 1 lived in Cologne, which is 1.1 million people.
How to read this: shrink Germany to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Cologne; 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
- 455 Huizhou China1,137,670
- 456 Kazan Russia1,132,941
- 457 Sekondi-Takoradi Ghana1,127,436
- 458 Srinagar India1,126,638
- 459 Cologne1,125,292
- 460 Bobo-Dioulasso Burkina Faso1,125,023
- 461 Suhaj Egypt1,123,349
- 462 Auckland New Zealand1,123,094
- 463 Belgrade Serbia1,121,410
In Germany, 2025
- 132 Berlin3,560,908
- 183 Essen2,717,087
- 275 Munich1,815,022
- 280 Hamburg1,759,377
- 459 Cologne1,125,292
- 570 Dusseldorf907,386
- 573 Frankfurt900,483
- 576 Stuttgart899,103
- 708 Bonn756,044
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 Cologne 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 Cologne 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