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Lisbon, 
Portugal
Lisboa
1,913,798 people lived in Lisbon in 2025. It is the 261st largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in Portugal, where it is the capital.
Like every city on this site, Lisbon is counted as a built-up area seen from above rather than as a city government's territory. Why that changes the number.
In its own language: Lisboa.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Lisbon grew
Count 10 people in Lisbon in 1975 and the same count gives 15 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 2.0 million people in 2050.
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
Lisbon through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Lisbon in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Portugal · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Portugal and its 9 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people. Lisbon 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, Lisbon covered 387 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 72 km² of it. That is 38 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 6 by 6 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.1 times its size, and its people have grown by 50%.
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 Portugal
Its share of Portugal
Of every 100 people in Portugal in 2025, 18 lived in Lisbon, which is 1.9 million people.
How to read this: shrink Portugal to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Lisbon; 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
- 257 N'Djaména Chad1,934,909
- 258 Beni Democratic Republic of the Congo1,923,700
- 259 Tarogong Indonesia1,917,036
- 260 San Diego United States1,915,114
- 261 Lisbon1,913,798
- 262 Bucharest Romania1,909,536
- 263 Sialkot Pakistan1,907,978
- 264 Bibhutpur India1,904,411
- 265 Malang Indonesia1,899,616
In Portugal, 2025
- 261 Lisbon1,913,798
- 521 Porto990,433
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 Lisbon 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 Lisbon 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