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Nagoya, 
Japan
7,146,160 people lived in Nagoya in 2025. It is the 49th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 3rd 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 Nagoya grew
Count 10 people in Nagoya in 1975 and the same count gives 13.3 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 6.3 million people in 2050.
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
Nagoya through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Nagoya in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Japan · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Nagoya is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of Japan in 2025, 137 in all, led by Tokyo, each drawn with an area that matches its people. Countries next door are outlines only.
Area and built-up land · km²
How much land it covers
In 2025, Nagoya covered 1,979 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 576 km² of it. That is 81 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 9 by 9 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 43%, and its people have grown by 33%.
How to read this: each pale square is the city's whole area, the strong square inside it the part that is built on; one scale for all three, so a bigger square is more land. Hatched is the UN's projection.
Of every 100 people in Japan
Its share of Japan
Of every 100 people in Japan in 2025, 6 lived in Nagoya, which is 7.1 million people.
How to read this: shrink Japan to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Nagoya; 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
- 45 Hangzhou China7,500,208
- 46 Wuhan China7,363,548
- 47 Tianjin China7,285,342
- 48 Alexandria Egypt7,266,957
- 49 Nagoya7,146,160
- 50 Johannesburg South Africa7,077,175
- 51 Chongqing China7,071,073
- 52 Riyadh Saudi Arabia6,916,417
- 53 Surat India6,908,925
In Japan, 2025
- 3 Tokyo33,412,512
- 25 Osaka12,964,145
- 49 Nagoya7,146,160
- 226 Fukuoka2,225,078
- 252 Sapporo1,964,519
- 406 Sendai1,256,440
- 428 Kitakyushu1,206,731
- 435 Hiroshima1,185,788
- 484 Naha1,060,017
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 Nagoya 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 Nagoya 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