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Lima, 
Peru
10,580,241 people lived in Lima in 2025. It is the 32nd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in Peru, where it is the capital.
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 Lima'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 Lima grew
For every 10 people in Lima in 1975, there were 30.1 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 12.4 million people in 2050. It passed ten million people between 2015 and 2020.
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
Lima through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Lima in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Peru · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Peru and its 43 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people. Lima is ringed, in colour; the other cities are grey. Neighbouring countries are outlines.
Area and built-up land · km²
How much land it covers
In 2025, Lima covered 1,026 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 305 km² of it. That is 29 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 78%, and its people are 3 times as many.
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 Peru
Its share of Peru
Of every 100 people in Peru in 2025, 31 lived in Lima, which is 10.6 million people.
How to read this: 100 squares, one for every 100th person in Peru; the coloured squares live in Lima. 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
- 28 Luanda Angola11,370,127
- 29 Chennai India11,153,205
- 30 Kinshasa Democratic Republic of the Congo10,943,641
- 31 Bogotá Colombia10,624,315
- 32 Lima10,580,241
- 33 London United Kingdom10,416,420
- 34 Hajipur India9,941,510
- 35 Rio de Janeiro Brazil9,500,336
- 36 Paris France9,381,921
In Peru, 2025
- 32 Lima10,580,241
- 529 Arequipa977,496
- 549 Trujillo949,018
- 868 Chiclayo620,622
- 957 Caleta Sanitaria572,154
- 1133 Cusco490,968
- 1177 Piura471,521
- 1179 Huancayo470,685
- 1635 Chimbote350,281
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 Lima 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 Lima 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