Topics
Penza, 
Russia
449,851 people lived in Penza in 2025. It is the 1239th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 30th largest in Russia.
Like every city on this site, Penza 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 Penza grew
Where Penza had 10 people in 1975, it had 9.3 in 2025, fewer than it started with.
On the UN's projection it will have 421,445 people in 2050.
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.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Penza through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Penza in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Russia · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Russia and its 254 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Moscow). Penza 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, Penza covered 100 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 24 km² of it. That is 54 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 times its size, and its people have fallen by 7%.
How to read this: each pale square is the city's whole area, the strong square inside it the part that is built on; one scale for all three, so a bigger square is more land. Hatched is the UN's projection.
Of every 100 people in Russia
Its share of Russia
Of every 1,000 people in Russia in 2025, 3 lived in Penza, which is 449,851 people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares stand for everyone in Russia, one square for every 1,000th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Penza's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 1235 Ilesa Nigeria450,464
- 1236 Basti India450,449
- 1237 Vijayapura India450,192
- 1238 Heyuan China449,860
- 1239 Penza449,851
- 1240 Ramadi Iraq449,183
- 1241 Mannheim Germany448,203
- 1242 Canning India447,522
- 1243 Zoucheng China447,484
In Russia, 2025
- 1180 Kemerovo470,175
- 1191 Ryazan466,086
- 1220 Cheboksary456,304
- 1222 Vladivostok455,141
- 1239 Penza449,851
- 1256 Irkutsk442,807
- 1278 Kaliningrad436,555
- 1312 Orenburg426,263
- 1415 Podolsk400,335
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 Penza 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 Penza 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