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Nantes, 
France
453,523 people lived in Nantes in 2025. It is the 1227th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 7th largest in France.
Like every city on this site, Nantes is counted as a built-up area seen from above rather than as a city government's territory. Why that changes the number.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Nantes grew
Count 10 people in Nantes in 1975 and the same count gives 13.1 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 477,104 people in 2050.
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
Nantes through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Nantes in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
France · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Nantes is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of France in 2025, 71 in all, led by Paris, 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, Nantes covered 121 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 34 km² of it. That is 75 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 9 by 9 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 52%, and its people have grown by 31%.
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 France
Its share of France
Of every 1,000 people in France in 2025, 7 lived in Nantes, which is 453,523 people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares stand for everyone in France, one square for every 1,000th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Nantes's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 1223 Hafizabad Pakistan454,903
- 1224 Butembo Democratic Republic of the Congo454,857
- 1225 Sadiqabad Pakistan454,465
- 1226 Surrey Canada454,230
- 1227 Nantes453,523
- 1228 Chimoio Mozambique453,521
- 1229 Catania Italy453,376
- 1230 Shashamane Ethiopia452,945
- 1231 Maturin Venezuela452,835
In France, 2025
- 578 Lille893,282
- 581 Marseille891,463
- 839 Toulouse642,224
- 856 Bordeaux631,551
- 1227 Nantes453,523
- 1345 Nice418,294
- 1424 Strasbourg398,175
- 1587 Grenoble359,128
- 1772 Montpellier324,059
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 Nantes 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 Nantes 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