Medellín, Colombia

Count 10 people in Medellín in 1975 and the same count gives 17.4 in 2025.

On the UN's projection it will have 3.3 million people in 2050.

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.

How to read this: every dot is one of the 81 cities in Colombia in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Bogotá. The ringed dot in colour is Medellín; the grey dots are the rest. The outlines around them are neighbouring countries.

In 2025, Medellín covered 234 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 64 km² of it. That is 19 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 4 by 4 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 74%, and its people have grown by 74%.

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 Colombia in 2025, 6 lived in Medellín, which is 3.4 million people.

How to read this: shrink Colombia to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Medellín; the grey ones are everybody else, in other cities, in towns and out in the country.

In the world, 2025

1. 135 Lusaka Zambia3,510,723
2. 136 Indore India3,476,423
3. 137 Jinan China3,472,980
4. 138 Changsha China3,457,508
5. 139 Medellín3,350,384
6. 140 Changchun China3,349,934
7. 141 Patna India3,309,383
8. 142 Nanchang China3,299,773
9. 143 Nanning China3,288,636

In Colombia, 2025

1. 31 Bogotá10,624,315
2. 139 Medellín3,350,384
3. 184 Cali2,700,232
4. 228 Barranquilla2,208,021
5. 510 Cartagena1,008,584
6. 555 Bucaramanga939,291
7. 617 Cúcuta848,408
8. 902 Pereira602,831
9. 954 Valledupar574,824

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.

Colombia · All the world's cities

The figures for Medellín 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 Medellín 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