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Kanazawa, 
Japan
533,682 people lived in Kanazawa in 2025. It is the 1041st largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 14th 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 Kanazawa'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 Kanazawa grew
Count 10 people in Kanazawa in 1975 and the same count gives 13.1 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 449,301 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
Kanazawa through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Kanazawa in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Japan · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 137 cities in Japan in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Tokyo. The ringed dot in colour is Kanazawa; 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, Kanazawa covered 171 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 46 km² of it. That is 86 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 9 by 9 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 45%, and its people have grown by 31%.
How to read this: each pale square is the city's whole area, the strong square inside it the part that is built on; one scale for all three, so a bigger square is more land. Hatched is the UN's projection.
Of every 100 people in Japan
Its share of Japan
Of every 1,000 people in Japan in 2025, 4 lived in Kanazawa, which is 533,682 people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in Japan; the coloured squares live in Kanazawa. 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
- 1037 Shillong India534,861
- 1038 Ahmednagar India534,622
- 1039 Joinville Brazil534,074
- 1040 Novo Hamburgo Brazil533,686
- 1041 Kanazawa533,682
- 1042 Genoa Italy532,509
- 1043 Zahedan Iran531,482
- 1044 Bozhou China531,429
- 1045 'Adan Yemen530,573
In Japan, 2025
- 515 Nara993,952
- 643 Okayama817,266
- 843 Kumamoto641,185
- 978 Otsu559,798
- 1041 Kanazawa533,682
- 1124 Himeji494,064
- 1145 Kagoshima484,164
- 1263 Toyohashi441,665
- 1275 Matsuyama437,355
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 Kanazawa 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 Kanazawa 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