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Essen, 
Germany
2,717,087 people lived in Essen in 2025. It is the 183rd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 2nd largest in Germany.
Like every city on this site, Essen is counted as a built-up area seen from above rather than as a city government's territory. Why that changes the number.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Essen grew
Essen had about as many people in 2025 as in 1975.
On the UN's projection it will have 2.5 million 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
Essen through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Essen in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Germany · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 100 cities in Germany in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Berlin. The ringed dot in colour is Essen; the grey dots are the rest. The outlines around them are neighbouring countries.
Area and built-up land · km²
How much land it covers
In 2025, Essen covered 877 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 198 km² of it. That is 73 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 9 by 9 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 45%, and its people are about 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 Germany
Its share of Germany
Of every 100 people in Germany in 2025, 3 lived in Essen, which is 2.7 million people.
How to read this: 100 squares stand for everyone in Germany, one square for every 100th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Essen's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 179 Yogyakarta Indonesia2,793,747
- 180 Agra India2,786,762
- 181 Naples Italy2,767,923
- 182 Conacry Guinea2,727,684
- 183 Essen2,717,087
- 184 Cali Colombia2,700,232
- 185 Guiyang China2,686,949
- 186 Semarang Indonesia2,679,349
- 187 Montreal Canada2,668,723
In Germany, 2025
- 132 Berlin3,560,908
- 183 Essen2,717,087
- 275 Munich1,815,022
- 280 Hamburg1,759,377
- 459 Cologne1,125,292
- 570 Dusseldorf907,386
- 573 Frankfurt900,483
- 576 Stuttgart899,103
- 708 Bonn756,044
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 Essen 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 Essen 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