Topics
Gaza, 
Palestine
1,038,285 people lived in Gaza in 2025. It is the 494th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 2nd largest in Palestine.
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 Gaza grew
Count 10 people in Gaza in 1975 and the same count gives 50.4 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.6 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 2020 and 2025.
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
Gaza through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Gaza in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Palestine · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 13 cities in Palestine in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being East Jerusalem. The ringed dot in colour is Gaza; 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, Gaza covered 79 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 25 km² of it. That is 24 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.3 times its size, and its people are 5 times 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 Palestine
Its share of Palestine
Of every 100 people in Palestine in 2025, 19 lived in Gaza, which is 1.0 million people.
How to read this: 100 squares, one for every 100th person in Palestine; the coloured squares live in Gaza. 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
- 490 Kottayam India1,043,314
- 491 Sarvestan Iran1,039,168
- 492 Barharia India1,038,927
- 493 Thalassery India1,038,647
- 494 Gaza1,038,285
- 495 Mendoza Argentina1,027,849
- 496 Santos Brazil1,027,752
- 497 Quetta Pakistan1,025,211
- 498 Mingora Pakistan1,024,813
In Palestine, 2025
- 467 East Jerusalem1,105,567
- 494 Gaza1,038,285
- 905 Khan Yunis601,421
- 1396 Hebron405,079
- 1799 Deir el-Balah319,915
- 2888 Nablus206,378
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 Gaza 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 Gaza 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