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Port Louis, 
Mauritius
549,015 people lived in Port Louis in 2025. It is the 1004th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in Mauritius, where it is the capital.
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 Port Louis grew
Where Port Louis had 10 people in 1975, it had 13.1 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 492,624 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
Port Louis through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Port Louis in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Mauritius · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 1 city in Mauritius in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there. The ringed dot in colour is Port Louis; 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, Port Louis covered 135 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 32 km² of it. That is 59 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 8 by 8 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2 times its size, and its people have grown by 31%.
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 Mauritius
Its share of Mauritius
Of every 100 people in Mauritius in 2025, 43 lived in Port Louis, which is 549,015 people.
How to read this: shrink Mauritius to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Port Louis; 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
- 1000 Riga Latvia550,267
- 1001 Sheffield United Kingdom549,695
- 1002 Purwakarta Indonesia549,480
- 1003 Kikwit Democratic Republic of the Congo549,102
- 1004 Port Louis549,015
- 1005 Arrah India547,584
- 1006 Meishan China546,811
- 1007 Huangdao District China545,983
- 1008 Silchar India544,936
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 Port Louis 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 Port Louis 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