Topics
Harbin, 
China
4,376,259 people lived in Harbin in 2025. It is the 96th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 17th largest in China.
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 Harbin'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 Harbin grew
For every 10 people in Harbin in 1975, there were 25.4 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 4.1 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
Harbin through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Harbin in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
China · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: China and its 2,082 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Shanghai). Harbin 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, Harbin covered 417 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 112 km² of it. That is 26 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.2 times its size, and its people are 2.5 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 China
Its share of China
Of every 1,000 people in China in 2025, 3 lived in Harbin, which is 4.4 million people.
How to read this: shrink China to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Harbin; 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
- 92 Santo Domingo Dominican Republic4,600,064
- 93 Cape Town South Africa4,508,921
- 94 Casablanca Morocco4,457,471
- 95 Mogadishu Somalia4,399,430
- 96 Harbin4,376,259
- 97 Kanpur India4,329,973
- 98 Kumasi Ghana4,297,984
- 99 Damascus Syria4,287,746
- 100 Jeddah Saudi Arabia4,284,080
In China, 2025
- 67 Shenyang5,702,638
- 77 Xi'an5,231,053
- 86 Zhengzhou4,878,035
- 87 Hefei4,867,000
- 96 Harbin4,376,259
- 106 Wenzhou4,158,195
- 112 Taiyuan4,005,816
- 113 Puning3,989,322
- 122 Ürümqi3,755,144
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 Harbin 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 Harbin 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