Topics
Moscow, 
Russia
Moskva
14,524,753 people lived in Moscow in 2025. It is the 19th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in Russia, where it is the capital.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Moscow governs, so it may be far from the number the city publishes about itself. How the UN measures a city.
In its own language: Moskva.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Moscow grew
Count 10 people in Moscow in 1975 and the same count gives 17 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 15.5 million people in 2050. It passed ten million people between 1985 and 1990.
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
Moscow through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Moscow in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Russia · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 254 cities in Russia in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there. The ringed dot in colour is Moscow; 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, Moscow covered 1,561 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 325 km² of it. That is 22 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 67%, and its people have grown by 70%.
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 Russia
Its share of Russia
Of every 100 people in Russia in 2025, 10 lived in Moscow, which is 14.5 million people.
How to read this: 100 squares, one for every 100th person in Russia; the coloured squares live in Moscow. 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
- 15 Mexico City Mexico17,734,212
- 16 Beijing China17,013,303
- 17 Lahore Pakistan15,156,430
- 18 Istanbul Türkiye15,014,763
- 19 Moscow14,524,753
- 20 Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam14,052,713
- 21 Buenos Aires Argentina14,017,736
- 22 New York City United States13,920,148
- 23 Shenzhen China13,878,396
In Russia, 2025
- 19 Moscow14,524,753
- 91 Saint Petersburg4,736,499
- 381 Novosibirsk1,331,432
- 432 Nizhny Novgorod1,196,944
- 449 Yekaterinburg1,148,237
- 456 Kazan1,132,941
- 479 Rostov-on-Don1,065,880
- 530 Omsk975,485
- 543 Samara955,599
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 Moscow 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 Moscow 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