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Gaoyou, 
China
348,058 people lived in Gaoyou in 2025. It is the 1642nd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 299th largest in China.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Gaoyou governs, so it may be far from the number the city publishes about itself. How the UN measures a city.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Gaoyou grew
Count 10 people in Gaoyou in 1990 and the same count gives 44.5 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 321,025 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2010 and 2015. The UN first counts it as a city in 1990, when it passed 50,000 people.
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
Gaoyou through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Gaoyou in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
China · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: China and its 2,082 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Shanghai). Gaoyou 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, Gaoyou covered 47 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 13 km² of it. That is 37 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 6 by 6 metres. Since 1990, its built-up land has grown to 4.1 times its size, and its people are 4.4 times 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 China
Its share of China
Fewer than 1 in every 1,000 people in China lived in Gaoyou in 2025 — about 1 in 4,000.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 1638 Palu Indonesia348,948
- 1639 Simri India348,804
- 1640 Sakarya Türkiye348,302
- 1641 Narowal Pakistan348,144
- 1642 Gaoyou348,058
- 1643 Oruro Bolivia347,830
- 1644 Kitchener Canada347,723
- 1645 Portmore Jamaica347,722
- 1646 Ondjiva Angola347,591
In China, 2025
- 1611 Yongzhou354,335
- 1613 Lili354,151
- 1617 Haifeng353,473
- 1632 Xinyang351,064
- 1642 Gaoyou348,058
- 1661 Guankou344,468
- 1666 Dongying343,003
- 1667 Kaili342,989
- 1670 Yanshi District342,565
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 Gaoyou are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 1990 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 Gaoyou 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