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Gaya, 
India
991,081 people lived in Gaya in 2025. It is the 519th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 82nd largest in India.
Like every city on this site, Gaya 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 Gaya grew
Count 10 people in Gaya in 1975 and the same count gives 40.1 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.2 million people in 2050. On the UN's projection it passes a million people between 2025 and 2030.
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
Gaya through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Gaya in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
India · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Gaya is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of India in 2025, 2,054 in all, led by New Delhi, 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, Gaya covered 145 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 17 km² of it. That is 17 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 4 by 4 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 3.6 times its size, and its people are 4 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 India
Its share of India
Of every 1,000 people in India in 2025, 1 lived in Gaya, which is 991,081 people.
How to read this: shrink India to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Gaya; the grey ones are everybody else, in other cities, in towns and out in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 515 Nara Japan993,952
- 516 Mangaluru993,566
- 517 San Luis Potosí Mexico992,648
- 518 Shiyan China992,165
- 519 Gaya991,081
- 520 Shunqing China990,466
- 521 Porto Portugal990,433
- 522 Linyi China987,615
- 523 Kharameh Iran983,056
In India, 2025
- 493 Thalassery1,038,647
- 511 Malda1,001,322
- 513 Puducherry998,290
- 516 Mangaluru993,566
- 519 Gaya991,081
- 539 Dharwad965,667
- 546 Faizabad952,074
- 547 Darbhanga950,875
- 551 Krishnanagar948,788
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 Gaya 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 Gaya 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