Topics
Columbus, 
United States
731,335 people lived in Columbus in 2025. It is the 732nd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 27th 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 Columbus'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 Columbus grew
Where Columbus had 10 people in 1975, it had 114.5 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 755,998 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 1995 and 2000.
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
Columbus through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Columbus in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
United States · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: the United States and its 348 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is New York City). Columbus 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, Columbus covered 353 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 73 km² of it. That is 99 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 10 by 10 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 11.2 times its size, and its people are 11.4 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, 2 lived in Columbus, which is 731,335 people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in the United States; the coloured squares live in Columbus. 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
- 728 Saltillo Mexico737,662
- 729 Kocaeli Türkiye737,380
- 730 Benxi China734,933
- 731 Nellore India732,235
- 732 Columbus731,335
- 733 Sahiwal Pakistan730,463
- 734 Lu'an China729,998
- 735 Tulungagung Indonesia728,924
- 736 Balikpapan Indonesia728,771
In the United States, 2025
- 451 Baltimore1,145,219
- 466 Minneapolis [Saint Paul]1,107,243
- 595 Saint Petersburg877,183
- 653 Detroit809,894
- 732 Columbus731,335
- 764 Milwaukee701,928
- 785 Fresno685,330
- 817 St. Louis663,392
- 873 West Palm Beach617,035
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 Columbus 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 Columbus 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