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Hefei, 
China
4,867,000 people lived in Hefei in 2025. It is the 87th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 16th 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 Hefei'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 Hefei grew
Where Hefei had 10 people in 1975, it had 40.9 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 4.5 million people in 2050.
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
Hefei through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Hefei in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
China · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Hefei is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of China in 2025, 2,082 in all, led by Shanghai, 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, Hefei covered 500 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 134 km² of it. That is 28 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 5.9 times its size, and its people are 4.1 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, 3 lived in Hefei, which is 4.9 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 Hefei; 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
- 83 Chattogram Bangladesh4,983,553
- 84 Singapore Singapore4,963,998
- 85 Kampala Uganda4,880,943
- 86 Zhengzhou4,878,035
- 87 Hefei4,867,000
- 88 Islāmābād Pakistan4,860,084
- 89 Kano Nigeria4,840,280
- 90 Hong Kong Hong Kong4,749,543
- 91 Saint Petersburg Russia4,736,499
In China, 2025
- 64 Chengdu6,139,874
- 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
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 Hefei 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 Hefei 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