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Payyanur, 
India
240,715 people lived in Payyanur in 2025. It is the 2437th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 397th largest in India.
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 Payyanur grew
Where Payyanur had 10 people in 1975, it had 38.6 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 284,686 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 1980 and 1985.
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
Payyanur through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Payyanur 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 biggest being New Delhi. The ringed dot in colour is Payyanur; 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, Payyanur covered 82 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 7.7 km² of it. That is 32 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 6 by 6 metres. Since 1980, its built-up land has grown to 5.9 times its size, and its people are 2.2 times as many.
How to read this: pale is the whole of the city's land; the stronger square inside it is what is actually built on. The three are drawn to the same scale, so a larger square really is more land, and hatching means the year is the UN's projection rather than a count.
Of every 100 people in India
Its share of India
Fewer than 1 in every 1,000 people in India lived in Payyanur in 2025 — about 1 in 6,250.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 2430 Tambacounda Senegal241,254
- 2431 Ore Nigeria241,251
- 2432 Mianwali Pakistan241,207
- 2436 Xinchang China240,747
- 2437 Payyanur240,715
- 2438 Phan Rang – Tháp Chàm Vietnam240,480
- 2439 Fenghua District China240,478
- 2445 Somerset West South Africa239,943
- 2446 Corpus Christi United States239,855
In India, 2025
- 2377 Dhupguri245,107
- 2400 Sawai Madhopur243,561
- 2414 Khajauli242,567
- 2417 Kannauj242,353
- 2437 Payyanur240,715
- 2448 Dohrighat239,251
- 2465 Dhaka237,385
- 2470 Lakhnaur237,133
- 2482 Modanganj236,293
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 Payyanur 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 Payyanur 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