Topics
Dubai, 
United Arab Emirates
5,283,789 people lived in Dubai in 2025. It is the 76th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in the United Arab Emirates.
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 Dubai'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 Dubai grew
Count 10 people in Dubai in 1980 and the same count gives 324.1 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 6.9 million people in 2050. It passed five million people between 2020 and 2025. The UN first counts it as a city in 1980, when it passed 50,000 people.
projected (after 2025) · how sure the UN is: high moderate low
How to read this: each column is one of the UN's five-yearly estimates, 1975 through 2050, and taller means more people. Where a column is hatched the year has not happened yet. The strip under the columns is the UN's own confidence in each figure, palest where it is least sure; where it is blank the city was not on the list at all.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Dubai through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Dubai in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
United Arab Emirates · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Dubai is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of the United Arab Emirates in 2025, 15 in all, 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, Dubai covered 903 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 226 km² of it. That is 43 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 7 by 7 metres. Since 1980, its built-up land has grown to 13 times its size, and its people are 32.4 times as many.
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 the United Arab Emirates
Its share of the United Arab Emirates
Of every 100 people in the United Arab Emirates in 2025, 47 lived in Dubai, which is 5.3 million people.
How to read this: 100 squares, one for every 100th person in the United Arab Emirates; the coloured squares live in Dubai. 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
- 72 Madrid Spain5,583,601
- 73 Faisalabad Pakistan5,566,382
- 74 Toronto Canada5,494,431
- 75 Mashhad Iran5,398,248
- 76 Dubai5,283,789
- 77 Xi'an China5,231,053
- 78 Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte - Colombo Sri Lanka5,223,838
- 79 Yaoundé Cameroon5,106,087
- 80 Kochi India5,077,670
In the United Arab Emirates, 2025
- 76 Dubai5,283,789
- 507 Abu Dhabi1,016,460
- 598 Al Ain873,839
- 1656 Ras Al Khaimah345,621
How to read this: the number before each name is its place among all 12,138 cities in the world in 2025; bars are people, on one scale per list. Only cities that reach 300,000 people have a page here, so a gap in the numbers is a smaller city.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Dubai are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 1980 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 Dubai 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