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El Paso, 
United States
605,731 people lived in El Paso in 2025. It is the 898th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 32nd largest in the United States.
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 El Paso grew
Count 10 people in El Paso in 1980 and the same count gives 92 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 661,069 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 1995 and 2000. 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
El Paso through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in El Paso in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
United States · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: El Paso is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of the United States in 2025, 348 in all, led by New York City, 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, El Paso covered 252 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 76 km² of it. That is 125 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 11 by 11 metres. Since 1980, its built-up land has grown to 13.7 times its size, and its people are 9.2 times as many.
How to read this: each pale square is the city's whole area, the strong square inside it the part that is built on; one scale for all three, so a bigger square is more land. Hatched is the UN's projection.
Of every 100 people in the United States
Its share of the United States
Of every 1,000 people in the United States in 2025, 2 lived in El Paso, which is 605,731 people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in the United States; the coloured squares live in El Paso. 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
- 894 Zhaoqing China607,624
- 895 Bihar Sharif India607,401
- 896 Zhangjiakou China606,124
- 897 Shibin Al-Kom Egypt605,913
- 898 El Paso605,731
- 899 Anqiu China605,324
- 900 Ottawa Canada605,121
- 901 Tampico Mexico603,035
- 902 Pereira Colombia602,831
In the United States, 2025
- 764 Milwaukee701,928
- 785 Fresno685,330
- 817 St. Louis663,392
- 873 West Palm Beach617,035
- 898 El Paso605,731
- 965 Norfolk567,473
- 994 Tampa551,988
- 1015 Salt Lake City542,449
- 1022 Honolulu540,683
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 El Paso 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 El Paso 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