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Ha'il, 
Saudi Arabia
236,744 people lived in Ha'il in 2025. It is the 2479th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 13th largest in Saudi Arabia.
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 Ha'il grew
Where Ha'il had 10 people in 1975, it had 38.6 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 394,998 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2005 and 2010.
projected (after 2025) · how sure the UN is: high moderate low
How to read this: one column every five years, 1975 to 2050; its height is the number of people. Hatched columns are the UN's projection. The thin strip beneath says how sure the UN is of each figure: the stronger the colour, the surer. A blank means the place was not on the UN's list of cities that year.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Ha'il through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Ha'il in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Saudi Arabia · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Saudi Arabia and its 44 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Riyadh). Ha'il 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, Ha'il covered 88 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 25 km² of it. That is 104 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 10 by 10 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 3.3 times its size, and its people are 3.9 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 Saudi Arabia
Its share of Saudi Arabia
Of every 1,000 people in Saudi Arabia in 2025, 7 lived in Ha'il, which is 236,744 people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in Saudi Arabia; the coloured squares live in Ha'il. 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
- 2470 Lakhnaur India237,133
- 2471 Raqqa Syria237,106
- 2472 Bonsa Bota Ethiopia237,061
- 2478 Fomboni Comoros236,750
- 2479 Ha'il236,744
- 2482 Modanganj India236,293
- 2483 Amarpur India236,273
- 2486 Funtua Nigeria236,087
- 2488 Mbanza-Ngungu Democratic Republic of the Congo236,056
In Saudi Arabia, 2025
- 1151 At Ta'if481,818
- 1895 Hafar Al-Batin302,534
- 2266 Zahrat Laban257,467
- 2393 Ash Sharai244,064
- 2479 Ha'il236,744
- 2859 `Ar`ar208,320
- 3025 Unaizah197,665
- 3079 Buraydah195,152
How to read this: the number before each name is its place among all 12,138 cities in the world in 2025; bars are people, on one scale per list. Only cities that reach 300,000 people have a page here, so a gap in the numbers is a smaller city.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Ha'il 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 Ha'il 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