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Himeji, 
Japan
494,064 people lived in Himeji in 2025. It is the 1124th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 15th largest in Japan.
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 Himeji'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 Himeji grew
Where Himeji had 10 people in 1975, it had 9.5 in 2025, fewer than it started with.
On the UN's projection it will have 401,015 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
Himeji through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Himeji in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Japan · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Japan and its 137 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Tokyo). Himeji 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, Himeji covered 201 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 51 km² of it. That is 103 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 10 by 10 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 35%, and its people have fallen by 5%.
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 Japan
Its share of Japan
Of every 1,000 people in Japan in 2025, 4 lived in Himeji, which is 494,064 people.
How to read this: shrink Japan to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Himeji; 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
- 1120 Fatehpur India494,897
- 1121 Poznan Poland494,839
- 1122 Ibagué Colombia494,316
- 1123 Karnal India494,241
- 1124 Himeji494,064
- 1125 Siping China493,984
- 1126 Hapur India493,837
- 1127 Aswan Egypt493,753
- 1128 Hardoi India493,665
In Japan, 2025
- 643 Okayama817,266
- 843 Kumamoto641,185
- 978 Otsu559,798
- 1041 Kanazawa533,682
- 1124 Himeji494,064
- 1145 Kagoshima484,164
- 1263 Toyohashi441,665
- 1275 Matsuyama437,355
- 1295 Takasaki [Maebashi]431,687
How to read this: the number before each name is its place among all 12,138 cities in the world in 2025; bars are people, on one scale per list. Only cities that reach 300,000 people have a page here, so a gap in the numbers is a smaller city.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Himeji 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 Himeji 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