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Niigata, 
Japan
422,238 people lived in Niigata in 2025. It is the 1326th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 20th 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 Niigata grew
For every 10 people in Niigata in 1975, there were 16 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 343,393 people in 2050.
projected (after 2025) · how sure the UN is: high moderate low
How to read this: read it left to right, 1975 to 2050, one column every five years, the height being people. Hatching marks the projected years. Below, a strip of the UN's confidence: strong colour where the census maps are recent and detailed, pale where they are not, blank where the place was not counted as a city.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Niigata through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Niigata in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Japan · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Japan and its 137 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Tokyo). Niigata 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, Niigata covered 141 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 37 km² of it. That is 89 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 9 by 9 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 55%, and its people have grown by 60%.
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 Japan
Its share of Japan
Of every 1,000 people in Japan in 2025, 3 lived in Niigata, which is 422,238 people.
How to read this: shrink Japan to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Niigata; 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
- 1322 Porto Velho Brazil422,943
- 1323 Sumgayit Azerbaijan422,836
- 1324 Shaoguan China422,509
- 1325 Bremen Germany422,414
- 1326 Niigata422,238
- 1327 Jijiga Ethiopia422,225
- 1328 Longyan China422,165
- 1329 Tucson United States422,107
- 1330 Chișinău Moldova422,035
In Japan, 2025
- 1145 Kagoshima484,164
- 1263 Toyohashi441,665
- 1275 Matsuyama437,355
- 1295 Takasaki [Maebashi]431,687
- 1326 Niigata422,238
- 1521 Numazu374,507
- 1533 Oita372,190
- 1605 Fukuyama355,352
- 1622 Utsunomiya352,816
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 Niigata 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 Niigata 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