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Golmud, 
China
251,353 people lived in Golmud in 2025. It is the 2315th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 413th largest in China.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Golmud 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 Golmud grew
Where Golmud had 10 people in 2005, it had 32 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 391,062 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2020 and 2025. The UN first counts it as a city in 2005, 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
Golmud through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Golmud 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). Golmud 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, Golmud covered 54 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 7.2 km² of it. That is 29 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 2005, its built-up land has grown to 2.5 times its size, and its people are 3.2 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 Golmud in 2025 — about 1 in 5,556.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 2310 Rosetta Egypt252,147
- 2312 Sunamganj Bangladesh251,822
- 2313 Tiaret Algeria251,576
- 2314 Vladimir Russia251,498
- 2315 Golmud251,353
- 2316 Shehong251,287
- 2318 Jiangyou251,202
- 2320 Araria India251,001
- 2321 Rangunia Bangladesh250,564
In China, 2025
- 2187 Yaguang266,899
- 2200 Jining265,293
- 2248 Jianhu259,681
- 2265 Dinghai District257,524
- 2315 Golmud251,353
- 2316 Shehong251,287
- 2318 Jiangyou251,202
- 2436 Xinchang240,747
- 2439 Fenghua District240,478
How to read this: names are in order of size, the leading number being each city's rank among all 12,138 in 2025; the bars share a scale within a list. A jump in the ranks means a city under 300,000 people, which is not given a page here.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Golmud are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 2005 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 Golmud 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