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Kozhikode, 
India
6,123,872 people lived in Kozhikode in 2025. It is the 66th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 11th 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 Kozhikode'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 Kozhikode grew
Where Kozhikode had 10 people in 1975, it had 108 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 7.1 million people in 2050. It passed five million people between 2015 and 2020.
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
Kozhikode through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Kozhikode in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
India · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Kozhikode 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, Kozhikode covered 1,078 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 78 km² of it. That is 13 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 4 by 4 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 23.7 times its size, and its people are 10.8 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, 4 lived in Kozhikode, which is 6.1 million people.
How to read this: shrink India to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Kozhikode; 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
- 62 Amman Jordan6,403,666
- 63 Baghdad Iraq6,390,735
- 64 Chengdu China6,139,874
- 65 Nairobi Kenya6,134,334
- 66 Kozhikode6,123,872
- 67 Shenyang China5,702,638
- 68 Kabul Afghanistan5,635,737
- 69 Onitsha Nigeria5,627,706
- 70 Yangon Myanmar5,618,303
In India, 2025
- 37 Hyderabad9,190,795
- 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
How to read this: names are in order of size, the leading number being each city's rank among all 12,138 in 2025; the bars share a scale within a list. A jump in the ranks means a city under 300,000 people, which is not given a page here.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Kozhikode 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 Kozhikode 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