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Nagano, 
Japan
270,476 people lived in Nagano in 2025. It is the 2152nd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 32nd largest in Japan.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Nagano 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 Nagano grew
Count 10 people in Nagano in 1975 and the same count gives 41.4 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 229,331 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 1990 and 1995.
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
Nagano through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Nagano in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Japan · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 137 cities in Japan in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Tokyo. The ringed dot in colour is Nagano; 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, Nagano covered 82 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 27 km² of it. That is 99 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 10 by 10 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 3.6 times its size, and its people are 4.1 times as many.
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 Japan
Its share of Japan
Of every 1,000 people in Japan in 2025, 2 lived in Nagano, which is 270,476 people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in Japan; the coloured squares live in Nagano. 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
- 2148 Kimberley South Africa271,078
- 2149 Jind India270,881
- 2150 Hassan India270,626
- 2151 Eket Nigeria270,603
- 2152 Nagano270,476
- 2153 Saint-Louis Senegal270,413
- 2155 Ambano Madagascar270,357
- 2156 Kapoeta South Sudan270,167
- 2157 Saghatta Bangladesh270,148
In Japan, 2025
- 1864 Nagasaki308,986
- 1930 Asahikawa298,481
- 2061 Hamamatsu282,084
- 2073 Kofu280,212
- 2152 Nagano270,476
- 2229 Hakodate261,557
- 2282 Wakayama255,782
- 2460 Ota237,865
- 5014 Fujieda122,203
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 Nagano 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 Nagano 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