Topics
Dhaka, 
India
237,385 people lived in Dhaka in 2025. It is the 2465th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 401st largest in India.
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 Dhaka'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 Dhaka grew
For every 10 people in Dhaka in 1995, there were 38.9 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 378,153 people in 2050. On the UN's projection it passes 250,000 people between 2025 and 2030. The UN first counts it as a city in 1995, when it passed 50,000 people.
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
Dhaka through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Dhaka in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
India · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: India and its 2,054 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is New Delhi). Dhaka 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, Dhaka covered 66 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 3.3 km² of it. That is 14 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 4 by 4 metres. Since 2005, its built-up land has grown to 3 times its size, and its people are 2.6 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 India
Its share of India
Fewer than 1 in every 1,000 people in India lived in Dhaka in 2025 — about 1 in 6,250.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 2460 Ota Japan237,865
- 2461 Diourbel Senegal237,795
- 2463 Jinju-si South Korea237,707
- 2464 Tal Afar Iraq237,454
- 2465 Dhaka237,385
- 2469 Manikganj Bangladesh237,163
- 2470 Lakhnaur237,133
- 2471 Raqqa Syria237,106
- 2472 Bonsa Bota Ethiopia237,061
In India, 2025
- 2414 Khajauli242,567
- 2417 Kannauj242,353
- 2437 Payyanur240,715
- 2448 Dohrighat239,251
- 2465 Dhaka237,385
- 2470 Lakhnaur237,133
- 2482 Modanganj236,293
- 2483 Amarpur236,273
- 2498 Tanda234,610
How to read this: names are in order of size, the leading number being each city's rank among all 12,138 in 2025; the bars share a scale within a list. A jump in the ranks means a city under 300,000 people, which is not given a page here.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Dhaka are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 1995 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 Dhaka 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