Topics
New Delhi, 
India
30,222,405 people lived in New Delhi in 2025. It is the 4th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in India, where it is the capital.
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 New Delhi'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 New Delhi grew
Where New Delhi had 10 people in 1975, it had 49.6 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 33.9 million people in 2050. It passed ten million people between 1985 and 1990.
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
New Delhi through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in New Delhi in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
India · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 2,054 cities in India in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there. The ringed dot in colour is New Delhi; 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, New Delhi covered 2,101 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 563 km² of it. That is 19 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 4 by 4 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.3 times its size, and its people are 5 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 India
Its share of India
Of every 100 people in India in 2025, 2 lived in New Delhi, which is 30.2 million people.
How to read this: 100 squares stand for everyone in India, one square for every 100th person. Count the coloured ones and you have New Delhi's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 1 Jakarta Indonesia41,913,860
- 2 Dhaka Bangladesh36,585,479
- 3 Tokyo Japan33,412,512
- 4 New Delhi30,222,405
- 5 Shanghai China29,558,908
- 6 Guangzhou China27,563,372
- 7 Cairo Egypt25,566,102
- 8 Manila Philippines24,735,305
In India, 2025
- 4 New Delhi30,222,405
- 9 Kolkata22,549,738
- 12 Mumbai20,203,056
- 24 Bengaluru13,187,098
- 29 Chennai11,153,205
- 34 Hajipur9,941,510
- 37 Hyderabad9,190,795
- 44 Ahmedabad7,632,408
- 53 Surat6,908,925
How to read this: names are in order of size, the leading number being each city's rank among all 12,138 in 2025; the bars share a scale within a list. A jump in the ranks means a city under 300,000 people, which is not given a page here.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for New Delhi 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 New Delhi 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