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Dortmund, 
Germany
748,106 people lived in Dortmund in 2025. It is the 717th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 10th largest in Germany.
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 Dortmund'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 Dortmund grew
Dortmund had about as many people in 2025 as in 1975.
On the UN's projection it will have 668,313 people in 2050.
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
Dortmund through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Dortmund in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Germany · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Dortmund is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of Germany in 2025, 100 in all, led by Berlin, each drawn with an area that matches its people. Countries next door are outlines only.
Area and built-up land · km²
How much land it covers
In 2025, Dortmund covered 270 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 56 km² of it. That is 75 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 9 by 9 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 56%, and its people are about 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 Germany
Its share of Germany
Of every 1,000 people in Germany in 2025, 9 lived in Dortmund, which is 748,106 people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares stand for everyone in Germany, one square for every 1,000th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Dortmund's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 713 Puyang China753,625
- 714 Jiaxing China751,156
- 715 Mersin Türkiye750,396
- 716 Thessaloniki Greece749,840
- 717 Dortmund748,106
- 718 Yichun China745,754
- 719 Damietta Egypt743,111
- 720 La Plata Argentina742,952
- 721 Bilbao Spain741,795
In Germany, 2025
- 570 Dusseldorf907,386
- 573 Frankfurt900,483
- 576 Stuttgart899,103
- 708 Bonn756,044
- 717 Dortmund748,106
- 820 Wuppertal662,663
- 837 Nuremberg644,169
- 887 Hanover611,288
- 989 Dresden554,612
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 Dortmund 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 Dortmund 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