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Lahore, 
Pakistan
15,156,430 people lived in Lahore in 2025. It is the 17th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 2nd largest in Pakistan.
Like every city on this site, Lahore is counted as a built-up area seen from above rather than as a city government's territory. Why that changes the number.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Lahore grew
Where Lahore had 10 people in 1975, it had 34.4 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 20.4 million people in 2050. It passed ten million people between 2005 and 2010.
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
Lahore through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Lahore in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Pakistan · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Lahore is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of Pakistan in 2025, 323 in all, led by Karachi, 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, Lahore covered 967 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 265 km² of it. That is 17 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 4 by 4 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.7 times its size, and its people are 3.4 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 Pakistan
Its share of Pakistan
Of every 100 people in Pakistan in 2025, 6 lived in Lahore, which is 15.2 million people.
How to read this: shrink Pakistan to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Lahore; 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
- 13 São Paulo Brazil18,949,790
- 14 Bangkok Thailand18,180,280
- 15 Mexico City Mexico17,734,212
- 16 Beijing China17,013,303
- 17 Lahore15,156,430
- 18 Istanbul Türkiye15,014,763
- 19 Moscow Russia14,524,753
- 20 Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam14,052,713
- 21 Buenos Aires Argentina14,017,736
In Pakistan, 2025
- 11 Karachi21,422,590
- 17 Lahore15,156,430
- 73 Faisalabad5,566,382
- 88 Islāmābād4,860,084
- 134 Peshawar3,554,423
- 159 Gujranwala3,121,271
- 165 Multan2,956,642
- 174 Hyderabad2,863,633
- 263 Sialkot1,907,978
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 Lahore 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 Lahore 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