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Karbala, 
Iraq
1,022,893 people lived in Karbala in 2025. It is the 501st largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 8th largest in Iraq.
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 Karbala'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 Karbala grew
Where Karbala had 10 people in 1975, it had 99.4 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.6 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 2020 and 2025.
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
Karbala through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Karbala in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Iraq · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Iraq and its 88 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Baghdad). Karbala 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, Karbala covered 111 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 27 km² of it. That is 26 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 5.2 times its size, and its people are 9.9 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 Iraq
Its share of Iraq
Of every 100 people in Iraq in 2025, 2 lived in Karbala, which is 1.0 million people.
How to read this: shrink Iraq to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Karbala; 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
- 497 Quetta Pakistan1,025,211
- 498 Mingora Pakistan1,024,813
- 499 Maceió Brazil1,023,645
- 500 Rotterdam Netherlands1,023,590
- 501 Karbala1,022,893
- 502 Marrakesh Morocco1,021,530
- 503 Otite Nigeria1,020,218
- 504 Tanta Egypt1,018,577
- 505 Luohe China1,018,295
In Iraq, 2025
- 312 Erbil1,582,829
- 403 Al-Najaf1,273,450
- 444 Kirkuk1,153,160
- 486 Al Hillah1,055,267
- 501 Karbala1,022,893
- 535 Duhok969,701
- 569 Sulaymaniyah907,815
- 577 Ad Diwaniyah894,478
- 645 Zakho814,526
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 Karbala 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 Karbala 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