Topics
Perth, 
Australia
1,079,374 people lived in Perth in 2025. It is the 474th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 3rd largest in Australia.
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 Perth grew
Count 10 people in Perth in 1975 and the same count gives 154.2 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.5 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 2020 and 2025.
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
Perth through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Perth in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Australia · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Australia and its 29 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Sydney). Perth 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, Perth covered 556 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 152 km² of it. That is 141 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 12 by 12 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 11.3 times its size, and its people are 15.4 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 Australia
Its share of Australia
Of every 100 people in Australia in 2025, 4 lived in Perth, which is 1.1 million people.
How to read this: 100 squares stand for everyone in Australia, one square for every 100th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Perth's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 470 Yancheng China1,093,432
- 471 Natal Brazil1,089,473
- 472 Yerevan Armenia1,089,209
- 473 Kaifeng China1,087,088
- 474 Perth1,079,374
- 475 Khulna Bangladesh1,074,134
- 476 Brisbane1,071,628
- 477 Zhangjiagang China1,068,192
- 478 Sofia Bulgaria1,067,136
In Australia, 2025
- 107 Sydney4,150,917
- 127 Melbourne3,639,893
- 474 Perth1,079,374
- 476 Brisbane1,071,628
- 592 Adelaide879,249
- 1399 Point Cook404,501
- 1926 Gold Coast298,750
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 Perth 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 Perth 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