Topics
Matara, 
Sri Lanka
292,019 people lived in Matara in 2025. It is the 1987th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 4th largest in Sri Lanka.
Like every city on this site, Matara is counted as a built-up area seen from above rather than as a city government's territory. Why that changes the number.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Matara grew
Count 10 people in Matara in 1990 and the same count gives 38.7 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 324,577 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2015 and 2020. The UN first counts it as a city in 1990, when it passed 50,000 people.
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
Matara through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Matara in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Sri Lanka · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 24 cities in Sri Lanka in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte - Colombo. The ringed dot in colour is Matara; 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, Matara covered 131 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 16 km² of it. That is 54 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 7 by 7 metres. Since 1990, its built-up land has grown to 5.9 times its size, and its people are 3.9 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 Sri Lanka
Its share of Sri Lanka
Of every 100 people in Sri Lanka in 2025, 1 lived in Matara, which is 292,019 people.
How to read this: 100 squares, one for every 100th person in Sri Lanka; the coloured squares live in Matara. 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
- 1983 Lausanne Switzerland293,509
- 1984 Hazro Pakistan293,506
- 1985 Kasaji Democratic Republic of the Congo292,523
- 1986 Kanyamazane South Africa292,211
- 1987 Matara292,019
- 1988 Bhadrak India291,997
- 1990 Bayannur China291,787
- 1991 Pangkalpinang Indonesia291,683
- 1992 Beledweyne Somalia291,630
In Sri Lanka, 2025
- 78 Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte - Colombo5,223,838
- 675 Kandy785,519
- 1651 Galle346,263
- 1987 Matara292,019
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 Matara are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 1990 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 Matara 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