Topics
Houston, 
United States
3,955,046 people lived in Houston in 2025. It is the 115th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 3rd largest in the United States.
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 Houston'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 Houston grew
Count 10 people in Houston in 1975 and the same count gives 369.8 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 5.5 million people in 2050. On the UN's projection it passes five million people between 2040 and 2045.
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
Houston through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Houston in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
United States · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: the United States and its 348 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is New York City). Houston 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, Houston covered 1,583 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 358 km² of it. That is 91 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 10 by 10 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 38.9 times its size, and its people are 37 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 the United States
Its share of the United States
Of every 100 people in the United States in 2025, 1 lived in Houston, which is 4.0 million people.
How to read this: shrink the United States to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Houston; 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
- 111 Sana'a Yemen4,018,856
- 112 Taiyuan China4,005,816
- 113 Puning China3,989,322
- 114 Barcelona Spain3,982,704
- 115 Houston3,955,046
- 116 Monterrey Mexico3,938,015
- 117 Tashkent Uzbekistan3,935,793
- 118 Antananarivo Madagascar3,916,219
- 119 Varanasi India3,858,863
In the United States, 2025
- 22 New York City13,920,148
- 27 Los Angeles12,740,420
- 115 Houston3,955,046
- 125 Chicago3,683,385
- 145 Washington, D.C.3,270,018
- 155 San Francisco3,163,486
- 170 Miami2,912,486
- 221 Denver2,265,994
- 225 Philadelphia2,232,420
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 Houston 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 Houston 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