Topics
Oslo, 
Norway
874,991 people lived in Oslo in 2025. It is the 597th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in Norway, where it is the capital.
Like every city on this site, Oslo 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 Oslo grew
For every 10 people in Oslo in 1975, there were 19.9 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 960,481 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
Oslo through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Oslo in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Norway · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 9 cities in Norway in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there. The ringed dot in colour is Oslo; 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, Oslo covered 249 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 41 km² of it. That is 46 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 7 by 7 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.4 times its size, and its people are 2 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 Norway
Its share of Norway
Of every 100 people in Norway in 2025, 16 lived in Oslo, which is 874,991 people.
How to read this: shrink Norway to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Oslo; 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
- 593 Sembawang Singapore878,551
- 594 Firozabad India878,282
- 595 Saint Petersburg United States877,183
- 596 Chenghai China875,988
- 597 Oslo874,991
- 598 Al Ain United Arab Emirates873,839
- 599 Hengyang China873,169
- 600 Nowshera Pakistan872,172
- 601 Cagayan de Oro Philippines870,291
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 Oslo 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 Oslo 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