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Gorakhpur, 
India
1,519,206 people lived in Gorakhpur in 2025. It is the 330th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 52nd largest in India.
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 Gorakhpur grew
Count 10 people in Gorakhpur in 1975 and the same count gives 21.8 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.7 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 1990 and 1995.
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
Gorakhpur through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Gorakhpur in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
India · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Gorakhpur 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, Gorakhpur covered 143 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 30 km² of it. That is 20 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 4 by 4 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 3.4 times its size, and its people are 2.2 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 India
Its share of India
Of every 1,000 people in India in 2025, 1 lived in Gorakhpur, which is 1.5 million 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 Gorakhpur; 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
- 326 Surakarta Indonesia1,538,599
- 327 Panama City Panama1,527,393
- 328 Brasília Brazil1,521,148
- 329 Dallas United States1,521,118
- 330 Gorakhpur1,519,206
- 331 Daejeon South Korea1,517,299
- 332 Jodhpur1,515,910
- 333 Sacramento United States1,514,661
- 334 Austin United States1,513,032
In India, 2025
- 314 Rajkot1,581,235
- 317 Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar1,567,020
- 321 Gwalior1,554,246
- 323 Vasai-Virar1,542,177
- 330 Gorakhpur1,519,206
- 332 Jodhpur1,515,910
- 342 Moradabad1,484,611
- 345 Raipur1,478,688
- 365 Durg1,393,235
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 Gorakhpur 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 Gorakhpur 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