Topics
Hamburg, 
Germany
1,759,377 people lived in Hamburg in 2025. It is the 280th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 4th largest in Germany.
The UN measures every city in the world the same way, by where the buildings are rather than where the boundary runs, so this figure and Hamburg's own can differ widely. What counts as a city here.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Hamburg grew
Count 10 people in Hamburg in 1975 and the same count gives 10.8 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.7 million people in 2050.
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
Hamburg through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Hamburg in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Germany · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Hamburg is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of Germany in 2025, 100 in all, led by Berlin, 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, Hamburg covered 479 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 107 km² of it. That is 61 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 8 by 8 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 58%, and its people have grown by 8%.
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 Germany
Its share of Germany
Of every 100 people in Germany in 2025, 2 lived in Hamburg, which is 1.8 million people.
How to read this: 100 squares, one for every 100th person in Germany; the coloured squares live in Hamburg. 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
- 276 Beirut Lebanon1,794,019
- 277 Yinchuan China1,792,788
- 278 Xiamen City China1,788,492
- 279 Handan China1,777,172
- 280 Hamburg1,759,377
- 281 Porto Alegre Brazil1,755,917
- 282 Slawi Indonesia1,733,437
- 283 Aligarh India1,729,663
- 284 Luoyang China1,727,744
In Germany, 2025
- 132 Berlin3,560,908
- 183 Essen2,717,087
- 275 Munich1,815,022
- 280 Hamburg1,759,377
- 459 Cologne1,125,292
- 570 Dusseldorf907,386
- 573 Frankfurt900,483
- 576 Stuttgart899,103
- 708 Bonn756,044
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 Hamburg 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 Hamburg 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