New Orleans, United States

For every 10 people in New Orleans in 1975, there were 6 in 2025: it shrank.

On the UN's projection it will have 259,701 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2015 and 2020. The UN's figures for New Orleans fall from 495,247 in 1980 to 242,791 in 2010. The UN rates its own confidence in the 1980 figure as high: cities are counted from census maps, and where those are old or coarse the figures are least certain.

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.

How to read this: the United States and its 348 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is New York City). New Orleans is ringed, in colour; the other cities are grey. Neighbouring countries are outlines.

In 2025, New Orleans covered 102 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 28 km² of it. That is 109 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 10 by 10 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land is about the same size, and its people have fallen by 40%.

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 1,000 people in the United States in 2025, 1 lived in New Orleans, which is 258,413 people.

How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in the United States; the coloured squares live in New Orleans. The grey rest live in other cities, in towns or in the countryside.

In the world, 2025

1. 2250 Vidisha India259,638
2. 2252 Dundo Angola259,341
3. 2253 Nawada India259,262
4. 2256 Gillingham United Kingdom258,422
5. 2257 New Orleans258,413
6. 2259 Abua Nigeria258,314
7. 2260 Masaurhi India258,274
8. 2262 Netanya Israel257,714
9. 2263 Kherson Ukraine257,682

In the United States, 2025

1. 2116 Gaithersburg274,439
2. 2176 Bellevue267,696
3. 2238 The Woodlands260,732
4. 2247 Hazel Dell259,716
5. 2257 New Orleans258,413
6. 2268 Murrieta257,413
7. 2335 Laredo249,861
8. 2336 Cutler Bay249,822
9. 2344 Edgecliff Village249,260

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.

United States · All the world's cities

The figures for New Orleans 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 Orleans 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