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Handan, 
China
1,777,172 people lived in Handan in 2025. It is the 279th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 44th largest in China.
Like every city on this site, Handan is counted as a built-up area seen from above rather than as a city government's territory. Why that changes the number.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Handan grew
Where Handan had 10 people in 1975, it had 77.2 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.6 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 2000 and 2005.
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
Handan through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Handan in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
China · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 2,082 cities in China in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Shanghai. The ringed dot in colour is Handan; the grey dots are the rest. The outlines around them are neighbouring countries.
Area and built-up land · km²
How much land it covers
In 2025, Handan covered 216 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 59 km² of it. That is 33 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 6 by 6 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 3 times its size, and its people are 7.7 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
Of every 1,000 people in China in 2025, 1 lived in Handan, which is 1.8 million people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in China; the coloured squares live in Handan. 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
- 275 Munich Germany1,815,022
- 276 Beirut Lebanon1,794,019
- 277 Yinchuan1,792,788
- 278 Xiamen City1,788,492
- 279 Handan1,777,172
- 280 Hamburg Germany1,759,377
- 281 Porto Alegre Brazil1,755,917
- 282 Slawi Indonesia1,733,437
- 283 Aligarh India1,729,663
In China, 2025
- 248 Hohhot1,993,292
- 269 Putian1,871,858
- 277 Yinchuan1,792,788
- 278 Xiamen City1,788,492
- 279 Handan1,777,172
- 284 Luoyang1,727,744
- 291 Nantong1,684,417
- 300 Wuhu1,631,043
- 301 Zibo1,620,676
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 Handan 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 Handan 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