Topics
Liverpool, 
United Kingdom
1,227,470 people lived in Liverpool in 2025. It is the 418th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 4th largest in the United Kingdom.
This is the UN's built-up area, drawn from satellite pictures and census maps rather than from the city limits, and the two can be a long way apart. The rule behind it.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Liverpool grew
For every 10 people in Liverpool in 1975, there were 8.7 in 2025: it shrank.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.3 million people in 2050.
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
Liverpool through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Liverpool in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
United Kingdom · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 150 cities in the United Kingdom in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being London. The ringed dot in colour is Liverpool; 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, Liverpool covered 369 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 88 km² of it. That is 71 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 8 by 8 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 42%, and its people have fallen by 13%.
How to read this: each pale square is the city's whole area, the strong square inside it the part that is built on; one scale for all three, so a bigger square is more land. Hatched is the UN's projection.
Of every 100 people in the United Kingdom
Its share of the United Kingdom
Of every 100 people in the United Kingdom in 2025, 2 lived in Liverpool, which is 1.2 million people.
How to read this: shrink the United Kingdom to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Liverpool; 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
- 414 Zhangzhou China1,232,911
- 415 Kota India1,232,364
- 416 Copenhagen Denmark1,229,370
- 417 Torreón Mexico1,227,850
- 418 Liverpool1,227,470
- 419 Vitória Brazil1,226,500
- 420 Maiduguri Nigeria1,225,505
- 421 Dehradun India1,219,198
- 422 Ashgabat Turkmenistan1,218,323
In the United Kingdom, 2025
- 33 London10,416,420
- 191 Birmingham2,631,757
- 196 Manchester2,535,427
- 418 Liverpool1,227,470
- 480 Leeds1,065,607
- 533 Glasgow970,320
- 700 Newcastle upon Tyne760,969
- 835 Nottingham649,610
- 875 Bristol615,703
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 Liverpool 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 Liverpool 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