Topics
Dandong, 
China
738,721 people lived in Dandong in 2025. It is the 725th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 118th largest in China.
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 Dandong grew
Count 10 people in Dandong in 1975 and the same count gives 17.9 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 657,598 people in 2050.
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
Dandong through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Dandong 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 Dandong; 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, Dandong covered 82 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 16 km² of it. That is 22 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.5 times its size, and its people have grown by 79%.
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 China
Its share of China
Of every 1,000 people in China in 2025, 1 lived in Dandong, which is 738,721 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 Dandong; 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
- 721 Bilbao Spain741,795
- 722 Zinder Niger740,218
- 723 Şanlıurfa Türkiye739,807
- 724 Bhavnagar India739,115
- 725 Dandong738,721
- 726 Djibouti Djibouti738,192
- 727 Mexicali Mexico737,963
- 728 Saltillo Mexico737,662
- 729 Kocaeli Türkiye737,380
In China, 2025
- 711 Xingtai754,483
- 713 Puyang753,625
- 714 Jiaxing751,156
- 718 Yichun745,754
- 725 Dandong738,721
- 730 Benxi734,933
- 734 Lu'an729,998
- 737 Zhumadian727,923
- 739 Suqian725,070
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 Dandong 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 Dandong 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