Topics
Herat, 
Afghanistan
1,259,425 people lived in Herat in 2025. It is the 405th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 2nd largest in Afghanistan.
Like every city on this site, Herat 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 Herat grew
For every 10 people in Herat in 1975, there were 64.3 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.8 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 2015 and 2020.
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
Herat through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Herat in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Afghanistan · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 85 cities in Afghanistan in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Kabul. The ringed dot in colour is Herat; 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, Herat covered 99 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 19 km² of it. That is 15 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 4 by 4 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.1 times its size, and its people are 6.4 times as many.
How to read this: the outer pale square stands for all the land the city covers, and the solid square inside it for the part with buildings, roads and the like on it. All three squares share a scale, so you can compare them by eye. A hatched one is a year the UN has projected.
Of every 100 people in Afghanistan
Its share of Afghanistan
Of every 100 people in Afghanistan in 2025, 3 lived in Herat, which is 1.3 million people.
How to read this: shrink Afghanistan to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Herat; 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
- 401 Saharanpur India1,275,279
- 402 Antalya Türkiye1,273,822
- 403 Al-Najaf Iraq1,273,450
- 404 São Luís Brazil1,264,379
- 405 Herat1,259,425
- 406 Sendai Japan1,256,440
- 407 Bujumbura Burundi1,246,960
- 408 Tiruppur India1,242,837
- 409 Sylhet Bangladesh1,242,548
In Afghanistan, 2025
- 68 Kabul5,635,737
- 405 Herat1,259,425
- 662 Kandahar799,015
- 834 Mazar i sharif651,287
- 927 Jalalabad587,508
- 2003 Taloqan290,028
- 2028 Kunduz287,295
- 2560 Maymana229,355
- 2574 Puli Khumri228,271
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 Herat 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 Herat 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