Topics
Malda, 
India
1,001,322 people lived in Malda in 2025. It is the 511th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 79th largest in India.
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 Malda'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 Malda grew
Where Malda had 10 people in 1975, it had 67.5 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.3 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 2020 and 2025.
projected (after 2025) · how sure the UN is: high moderate low
How to read this: one column every five years, 1975 to 2050; its height is the number of people. Hatched columns are the UN's projection. The thin strip beneath says how sure the UN is of each figure: the stronger the colour, the surer. A blank means the place was not on the UN's list of cities that year.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Malda through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Malda in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
India · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 2,054 cities in India in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being New Delhi. The ringed dot in colour is Malda; 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, Malda covered 277 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 15 km² of it. That is 15 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 4 by 4 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 6.9 times its size, and its people are 6.7 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 India
Its share of India
Of every 1,000 people in India in 2025, 1 lived in Malda, which is 1.0 million people.
How to read this: shrink India to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Malda; 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
- 507 Abu Dhabi United Arab Emirates1,016,460
- 508 Hải Phòng Vietnam1,015,494
- 509 Helsingfors Finland1,014,317
- 510 Cartagena Colombia1,008,584
- 511 Malda1,001,322
- 512 Jinhua China998,519
- 513 Puducherry998,290
- 514 Mataram Indonesia997,132
- 515 Nara Japan993,952
In India, 2025
- 468 Solapur1,102,702
- 490 Kottayam1,043,314
- 492 Barharia1,038,927
- 493 Thalassery1,038,647
- 511 Malda1,001,322
- 513 Puducherry998,290
- 516 Mangaluru993,566
- 519 Gaya991,081
- 539 Dharwad965,667
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 Malda 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 Malda 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