Topics
Kochi, 
India
5,077,670 people lived in Kochi in 2025. It is the 80th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 12th largest in India.
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 Kochi'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 Kochi grew
For every 10 people in Kochi in 1975, there were 32.2 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 5.8 million people in 2050. It passed five 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
Kochi through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Kochi in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
India · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Kochi is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of India in 2025, 2,054 in all, led by New Delhi, 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, Kochi covered 1,261 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 178 km² of it. That is 35 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 6 by 6 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 5.9 times its size, and its people are 3.2 times as many.
How to read this: pale is the whole of the city's land; the stronger square inside it is what is actually built on. The three are drawn to the same scale, so a larger square really is more land, and hatching means the year is the UN's projection rather than a count.
Of every 100 people in India
Its share of India
Of every 1,000 people in India in 2025, 3 lived in Kochi, which is 5.1 million people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in India; the coloured squares live in Kochi. 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
- 76 Dubai United Arab Emirates5,283,789
- 77 Xi'an China5,231,053
- 78 Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte - Colombo Sri Lanka5,223,838
- 79 Yaoundé Cameroon5,106,087
- 80 Kochi5,077,670
- 81 Hanoi Vietnam5,068,414
- 82 Lucknow5,052,444
- 83 Chattogram Bangladesh4,983,553
- 84 Singapore Singapore4,963,998
In India, 2025
- 44 Ahmedabad7,632,408
- 53 Surat6,908,925
- 55 Pune6,817,951
- 66 Kozhikode6,123,872
- 80 Kochi5,077,670
- 82 Lucknow5,052,444
- 97 Kanpur4,329,973
- 110 Jaipur4,071,754
- 119 Varanasi3,858,863
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 Kochi 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 Kochi 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