Topics
Lyon, 
France
1,202,985 people lived in Lyon in 2025. It is the 429th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 2nd largest in France.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Lyon governs, so it may be far from the number the city publishes about itself. How the UN measures a city.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Lyon grew
Count 10 people in Lyon in 1975 and the same count gives 14.4 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.3 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 1995 and 2000.
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
Lyon through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Lyon in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
France · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 71 cities in France in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Paris. The ringed dot in colour is Lyon; 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, Lyon covered 242 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 67 km² of it. That is 55 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 7 by 7 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 48%, and its people have grown by 44%.
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 France
Its share of France
Of every 100 people in France in 2025, 2 lived in Lyon, which is 1.2 million people.
How to read this: shrink France to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Lyon; 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
- 425 Ciudad Juárez Mexico1,212,370
- 426 Begusarai India1,210,200
- 427 Pekanbaru Indonesia1,208,872
- 428 Kitakyushu Japan1,206,731
- 429 Lyon1,202,985
- 430 Prague Czechia1,197,765
- 431 Calgary Canada1,197,110
- 432 Nizhny Novgorod Russia1,196,944
- 433 Jalandhar India1,192,763
In France, 2025
- 36 Paris9,381,921
- 429 Lyon1,202,985
- 578 Lille893,282
- 581 Marseille891,463
- 839 Toulouse642,224
- 856 Bordeaux631,551
- 1227 Nantes453,523
- 1345 Nice418,294
- 1424 Strasbourg398,175
How to read this: the figure in front of a name is where that city stands among the 12,138 cities the UN counted in 2025, and each bar is its people, on one scale per list. Numbers are missing where a city has fewer than 300,000 people and so has no page of its own.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Lyon 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 Lyon 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