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Hiroshima, 
Japan
1,185,788 people lived in Hiroshima in 2025. It is the 435th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 8th 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 Hiroshima'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 Hiroshima grew
Hiroshima had about as many people in 2025 as in 1975.
On the UN's projection it will have 971,268 people in 2050.
projected (after 2025) · how sure the UN is: high moderate low
How to read this: each column is one of the UN's five-yearly estimates, 1975 through 2050, and taller means more people. Where a column is hatched the year has not happened yet. The strip under the columns is the UN's own confidence in each figure, palest where it is least sure; where it is blank the city was not on the list at all.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Hiroshima through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Hiroshima in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Japan · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Hiroshima is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of Japan in 2025, 137 in all, led by Tokyo, 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, Hiroshima covered 337 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 77 km² of it. That is 65 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 8 by 8 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 40%, and its people are about 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 Japan
Its share of Japan
Of every 1,000 people in Japan in 2025, 10 lived in Hiroshima, which is 1.2 million people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in Japan; the coloured squares live in Hiroshima. 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
- 431 Calgary Canada1,197,110
- 432 Nizhny Novgorod Russia1,196,944
- 433 Jalandhar India1,192,763
- 434 Oran Algeria1,192,410
- 435 Hiroshima1,185,788
- 436 Padang Indonesia1,184,342
- 437 Shymkent Kazakhstan1,184,337
- 438 Bandar Lampung Indonesia1,184,054
- 439 Yueqing China1,160,214
In Japan, 2025
- 226 Fukuoka2,225,078
- 252 Sapporo1,964,519
- 406 Sendai1,256,440
- 428 Kitakyushu1,206,731
- 435 Hiroshima1,185,788
- 484 Naha1,060,017
- 515 Nara993,952
- 643 Okayama817,266
- 843 Kumamoto641,185
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 Hiroshima 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 Hiroshima 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