Topics
Mashhad, 
Iran
5,398,248 people lived in Mashhad in 2025. It is the 75th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 2nd largest in Iran.
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 Mashhad grew
For every 10 people in Mashhad in 1975, there were 40.8 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 5.7 million people in 2050. It passed five 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
Mashhad through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Mashhad in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Iran · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Iran and its 210 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Tehran). Mashhad 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, Mashhad covered 482 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 93 km² of it. That is 17 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 4 by 4 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.1 times its size, and its people are 4.1 times as many.
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 Iran
Its share of Iran
Of every 100 people in Iran in 2025, 6 lived in Mashhad, which is 5.4 million people.
How to read this: 100 squares, one for every 100th person in Iran; the coloured squares live in Mashhad. 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
- 71 Accra Ghana5,592,780
- 72 Madrid Spain5,583,601
- 73 Faisalabad Pakistan5,566,382
- 74 Toronto Canada5,494,431
- 75 Mashhad5,398,248
- 76 Dubai United Arab Emirates5,283,789
- 77 Xi'an China5,231,053
- 78 Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte - Colombo Sri Lanka5,223,838
- 79 Yaoundé Cameroon5,106,087
In Iran, 2025
- 38 Tehran9,174,964
- 75 Mashhad5,398,248
- 131 Karaj3,598,661
- 272 Isfahan1,844,409
- 297 Ahwaz1,639,321
- 393 Tabriz1,309,004
- 491 Sarvestan1,039,168
- 523 Kharameh983,056
- 566 Shiraz914,496
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 Mashhad 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 Mashhad 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