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Kendal, 
Indonesia
541,030 people lived in Kendal in 2025. It is the 1021st largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 38th largest in Indonesia.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Kendal governs, so it may be far from the number the city publishes about itself. How the UN measures a city.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Kendal grew
Where Kendal had 10 people in 1975, it had 14.2 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 453,393 people in 2050.
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
Kendal through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Kendal in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Indonesia · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 389 cities in Indonesia in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Jakarta. The ringed dot in colour is Kendal; 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, Kendal covered 182 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 20 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 5 times its size, and its people have grown by 42%.
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 Indonesia
Its share of Indonesia
Of every 1,000 people in Indonesia in 2025, 2 lived in Kendal, which is 541,030 people.
How to read this: shrink Indonesia to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Kendal; 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
- 1017 Leipzig Germany542,313
- 1018 Xalapa Mexico542,213
- 1019 Durango Mexico541,787
- 1020 Chengtougu China541,451
- 1021 Kendal541,030
- 1022 Honolulu United States540,683
- 1023 Matamoros Mexico540,236
- 1024 Tirupati India539,275
- 1025 Mbeya Tanzania539,248
In Indonesia, 2025
- 963 Selong568,139
- 987 Ambon555,651
- 1002 Purwakarta549,480
- 1010 Cilacap544,657
- 1021 Kendal541,030
- 1026 Kupang538,998
- 1055 Jember522,844
- 1082 Gorontalo513,078
- 1112 Balung497,754
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 Kendal 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 Kendal 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