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Mesa, 
United States
1,398,369 people lived in Mesa in 2025. It is the 363rd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 20th largest in the United States.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Mesa 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 Mesa grew
Where Mesa had 10 people in 1995, it had 152.5 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.8 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 2010 and 2015. The UN first counts it as a city in 1995, when it passed 50,000 people.
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
Mesa through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Mesa in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
United States · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: the United States and its 348 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is New York City). Mesa 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, Mesa covered 619 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 191 km² of it. That is 136 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 12 by 12 metres. Since 1995, its built-up land has grown to 13.3 times its size, and its people are 15.2 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 the United States
Its share of the United States
Of every 1,000 people in the United States in 2025, 4 lived in Mesa, which is 1.4 million people.
How to read this: shrink the United States to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Mesa; 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
- 359 Seattle1,403,495
- 360 Xuzhou China1,402,001
- 361 Niamey Niger1,401,149
- 362 Liuzhou China1,400,880
- 363 Mesa1,398,369
- 364 Portland1,397,788
- 365 Durg India1,393,235
- 366 Valencia Spain1,390,045
- 367 Aboh Nigeria1,374,320
In the United States, 2025
- 333 Sacramento1,514,661
- 334 Austin1,513,032
- 337 Oakland1,503,319
- 359 Seattle1,403,495
- 363 Mesa1,398,369
- 364 Portland1,397,788
- 370 Fort Lauderdale1,368,027
- 451 Baltimore1,145,219
- 466 Minneapolis [Saint Paul]1,107,243
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 Mesa are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 1995 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 Mesa 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