Topics
Edinburgh, 
United Kingdom
521,784 people lived in Edinburgh in 2025. It is the 1058th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 12th largest in the United Kingdom.
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 Edinburgh'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 Edinburgh grew
For every 10 people in Edinburgh in 1975, there were 12.3 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 530,590 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
Edinburgh through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Edinburgh in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
United Kingdom · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: the United Kingdom and its 150 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is London). Edinburgh 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, Edinburgh covered 131 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 29 km² of it. That is 55 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 7 by 7 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 47%, and its people have grown by 23%.
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 Kingdom
Its share of the United Kingdom
Of every 1,000 people in the United Kingdom in 2025, 8 lived in Edinburgh, which is 521,784 people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in the United Kingdom; the coloured squares live in Edinburgh. 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
- 1054 Astrakhan Russia524,085
- 1055 Jember Indonesia522,844
- 1056 Masetjhaba View South Africa522,402
- 1057 Málaga Spain521,854
- 1058 Edinburgh521,784
- 1059 Thiès Senegal521,678
- 1060 Shabqadar Pakistan521,259
- 1061 Shahkot Pakistan520,664
- 1062 Liling China520,239
In the United Kingdom, 2025
- 835 Nottingham649,610
- 875 Bristol615,703
- 1001 Sheffield549,695
- 1046 Leicester530,264
- 1058 Edinburgh521,784
- 1137 Portsmouth488,385
- 1188 Brighton467,937
- 1262 Belfast441,925
- 1308 Coventry427,678
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 Edinburgh 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 Edinburgh 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