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Haifa, 
Israel
484,770 people lived in Haifa in 2025. It is the 1143rd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 3rd largest in Israel.
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 Haifa grew
For every 10 people in Haifa in 1975, there were 29.5 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 681,410 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 1985 and 1990.
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
Haifa through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Haifa in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Israel · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Haifa is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of Israel in 2025, 25 in all, led by Tel Aviv, 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, Haifa covered 123 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 26 km² of it. That is 53 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 7 by 7 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.6 times its size, and its people are 3 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 Israel
Its share of Israel
Of every 100 people in Israel in 2025, 5 lived in Haifa, which is 484,770 people.
How to read this: shrink Israel to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Haifa; 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
- 1139 Dimapur India487,500
- 1140 Timerein Sudan486,586
- 1141 Yazd Iran485,381
- 1142 Enshi China485,222
- 1143 Haifa484,770
- 1144 Cooch Behar India484,313
- 1145 Kagoshima Japan484,164
- 1146 Dire Dawa Ethiopia483,674
- 1147 Huzhou China483,361
In Israel, 2025
- 190 Tel Aviv2,642,872
- 563 Jerusalem920,478
- 1143 Haifa484,770
- 2032 Ashdod286,310
- 2039 Modiin-Maccabim-Reut285,763
- 2195 Nazareth265,611
- 2262 Netanya257,714
- 2334 Rehovot249,925
- 2767 Beersheba214,104
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 Haifa 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 Haifa 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