Topics
Kathmandu, 
Nepal
3,231,516 people lived in Kathmandu in 2025. It is the 150th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in Nepal, where it is the capital.
This is the UN's built-up area, drawn from satellite pictures and census maps rather than from the city limits, and the two can be a long way apart. The rule behind it.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Kathmandu grew
Count 10 people in Kathmandu in 1975 and the same count gives 77 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 4.1 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 1990 and 1995.
projected (after 2025) · how sure the UN is: high moderate low
How to read this: read it left to right, 1975 to 2050, one column every five years, the height being people. Hatching marks the projected years. Below, a strip of the UN's confidence: strong colour where the census maps are recent and detailed, pale where they are not, blank where the place was not counted as a city.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Kathmandu through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Kathmandu in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Nepal · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Kathmandu is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of Nepal in 2025, 19 in all, 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, Kathmandu covered 327 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 78 km² of it. That is 24 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 3.3 times its size, and its people are 7.7 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 Nepal
Its share of Nepal
Of every 100 people in Nepal in 2025, 11 lived in Kathmandu, which is 3.2 million people.
How to read this: shrink Nepal to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Kathmandu; 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
- 146 Busan South Korea3,263,221
- 147 Nagpur India3,257,841
- 148 Algiers Algeria3,246,400
- 149 Fortaleza Brazil3,244,260
- 150 Kathmandu3,231,516
- 151 Kunming China3,228,117
- 152 Ouagadougou Burkina Faso3,206,222
- 153 Durban South Africa3,177,927
- 154 Maputo Mozambique3,166,328
In Nepal, 2025
- 150 Kathmandu3,231,516
- 1420 Biratnagar398,453
- 1941 Pokhara297,320
- 2409 Pokhariya242,966
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 Kathmandu 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 Kathmandu 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