Topics
Liling, 
China
520,239 people lived in Liling in 2025. It is the 1062nd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 192nd largest in China.
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 Liling'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 Liling grew
For every 10 people in Liling in 1980, there were 94.2 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 511,394 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 1995 and 2000. The UN first counts it as a city in 1980, when it passed 50,000 people.
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
Liling through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Liling in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
China · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 2,082 cities in China in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Shanghai. The ringed dot in colour is Liling; 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, Liling covered 41 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 9.6 km² of it. That is 18 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 4 by 4 metres. Since 1980, its built-up land has grown to 5.1 times its size, and its people are 9.4 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 China
Its share of China
Fewer than 1 in every 1,000 people in China lived in Liling in 2025 — about 1 in 2,703.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 1058 Edinburgh United Kingdom521,784
- 1059 Thiès Senegal521,678
- 1060 Shabqadar Pakistan521,259
- 1061 Shahkot Pakistan520,664
- 1062 Liling520,239
- 1063 Constantine Algeria519,932
- 1064 Latur India519,913
- 1065 Liaocheng519,411
- 1066 Utrecht Netherlands519,200
In China, 2025
- 1035 Bengbu535,096
- 1044 Bozhou531,429
- 1050 Beibei527,806
- 1051 Langfang527,161
- 1062 Liling520,239
- 1065 Liaocheng519,411
- 1069 Dongsheng518,080
- 1078 Zhuji515,549
- 1079 Chenzhou514,905
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 Liling are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 1980 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 Liling 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