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Nagasaki, 
Japan
308,986 people lived in Nagasaki in 2025. It is the 1864th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 28th largest in Japan.
This is the UN's built-up area, drawn from satellite pictures and census maps rather than from the city limits, and the two can be a long way apart. The rule behind it.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Nagasaki grew
Count 10 people in Nagasaki in 1975 and the same count gives 9.4 in 2025 — the city lost people.
On the UN's projection it will have 261,632 people in 2050.
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
Nagasaki through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Nagasaki in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Japan · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Japan and its 137 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Tokyo). Nagasaki 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, Nagasaki covered 75 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 17 km² of it. That is 55 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 7 by 7 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 43%, and its people have fallen by 6%.
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 Japan
Its share of Japan
Of every 1,000 people in Japan in 2025, 3 lived in Nagasaki, which is 308,986 people.
How to read this: shrink Japan to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Nagasaki; 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
- 1860 Sandwip Bangladesh309,439
- 1861 Moshi Tanzania309,202
- 1862 Xichang China309,170
- 1863 Madhepura India309,065
- 1864 Nagasaki308,986
- 1865 Cangnan China308,925
- 1866 Qoqand Uzbekistan308,393
- 1867 Jacobabad Pakistan308,137
- 1868 Tonghua China308,016
In Japan, 2025
- 1622 Utsunomiya352,816
- 1678 Takamatsu340,478
- 1729 Yokkaichi332,173
- 1748 Shizuoka328,613
- 1864 Nagasaki308,986
- 1930 Asahikawa298,481
- 2061 Hamamatsu282,084
- 2073 Kofu280,212
- 2152 Nagano270,476
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 Nagasaki 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 Nagasaki 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