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Pekanbaru, 
Indonesia
1,208,872 people lived in Pekanbaru in 2025. It is the 427th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 19th largest in Indonesia.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Pekanbaru governs, so it may be far from the number the city publishes about itself. How the UN measures a city.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Pekanbaru grew
Count 10 people in Pekanbaru in 1975 and the same count gives 128.3 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.6 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 2015 and 2020.
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
Pekanbaru through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Pekanbaru in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Indonesia · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 389 cities in Indonesia in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Jakarta. The ringed dot in colour is Pekanbaru; 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, Pekanbaru covered 233 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 49 km² of it. That is 40 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 6 by 6 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 5.3 times its size, and its people are 12.8 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 Indonesia
Its share of Indonesia
Of every 1,000 people in Indonesia in 2025, 4 lived in Pekanbaru, which is 1.2 million people.
How to read this: shrink Indonesia to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Pekanbaru; 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
- 423 Tangier Morocco1,217,976
- 424 Ganzhou China1,216,248
- 425 Ciudad Juárez Mexico1,212,370
- 426 Begusarai India1,210,200
- 427 Pekanbaru1,208,872
- 428 Kitakyushu Japan1,206,731
- 429 Lyon France1,202,985
- 430 Prague Czechia1,197,765
- 431 Calgary Canada1,197,110
In Indonesia, 2025
- 326 Surakarta1,538,599
- 338 Batam City1,500,354
- 382 Purwokerto1,331,010
- 386 Samarinda1,325,554
- 427 Pekanbaru1,208,872
- 436 Padang1,184,342
- 438 Bandar Lampung1,184,054
- 514 Mataram997,132
- 525 Jambi980,534
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.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Pekanbaru 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 Pekanbaru 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