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Nanjing, 
China
6,800,676 people lived in Nanjing in 2025. It is the 57th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 10th largest in China.
The UN measures every city in the world the same way, by where the buildings are rather than where the boundary runs, so this figure and Nanjing's own can differ widely. What counts as a city here.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Nanjing grew
Where Nanjing had 10 people in 1975, it had 42.3 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 6.3 million people in 2050. It passed five million people between 2005 and 2010.
projected (after 2025) · how sure the UN is: high moderate low
How to read this: each column is one of the UN's five-yearly estimates, 1975 through 2050, and taller means more people. Where a column is hatched the year has not happened yet. The strip under the columns is the UN's own confidence in each figure, palest where it is least sure; where it is blank the city was not on the list at all.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Nanjing through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Nanjing in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
China · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: China and its 2,082 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Shanghai). Nanjing 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, Nanjing covered 723 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 164 km² of it. That is 24 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 4.3 times its size, and its people are 4.2 times as many.
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 China
Its share of China
Of every 1,000 people in China in 2025, 5 lived in Nanjing, which is 6.8 million people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares stand for everyone in China, one square for every 1,000th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Nanjing's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 53 Surat India6,908,925
- 54 Surabaya Indonesia6,843,503
- 55 Pune India6,817,951
- 56 Khartoum Sudan6,809,355
- 57 Nanjing6,800,676
- 58 Santiago Chile6,726,045
- 59 Addis Ababa Ethiopia6,705,705
- 60 Abidjan Côte d’Ivoire6,621,711
- 61 Chaozhou6,407,770
In China, 2025
- 45 Hangzhou7,500,208
- 46 Wuhan7,363,548
- 47 Tianjin7,285,342
- 51 Chongqing7,071,073
- 57 Nanjing6,800,676
- 61 Chaozhou6,407,770
- 64 Chengdu6,139,874
- 67 Shenyang5,702,638
- 77 Xi'an5,231,053
How to read this: the number before each name is its place among all 12,138 cities in the world in 2025; bars are people, on one scale per list. Only cities that reach 300,000 people have a page here, so a gap in the numbers is a smaller city.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Nanjing 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 Nanjing 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