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Jinan, 
China
3,472,980 people lived in Jinan in 2025. It is the 137th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 23rd 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 Jinan'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 Jinan grew
Count 10 people in Jinan in 1975 and the same count gives 29.4 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 3.1 million 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
Jinan through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Jinan in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
China · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 2,082 cities in China in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Shanghai. The ringed dot in colour is Jinan; 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, Jinan covered 444 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 127 km² of it. That is 37 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 6 by 6 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.8 times its size, and its people are 2.9 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 China
Its share of China
Of every 1,000 people in China in 2025, 2 lived in Jinan, which is 3.5 million people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares stand for everyone in China, one square for every 1,000th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Jinan's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 133 Savar Bangladesh3,557,381
- 134 Peshawar Pakistan3,554,423
- 135 Lusaka Zambia3,510,723
- 136 Indore India3,476,423
- 137 Jinan3,472,980
- 138 Changsha3,457,508
- 139 Medellín Colombia3,350,384
- 140 Changchun3,349,934
- 141 Patna India3,309,383
In China, 2025
- 112 Taiyuan4,005,816
- 113 Puning3,989,322
- 122 Ürümqi3,755,144
- 128 Qingdao3,616,657
- 137 Jinan3,472,980
- 138 Changsha3,457,508
- 140 Changchun3,349,934
- 142 Nanchang3,299,773
- 143 Nanning3,288,636
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 Jinan 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 Jinan 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