Topics
Portland, 
United States
1,397,788 people lived in Portland in 2025. It is the 364th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 21st largest in the United States.
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 Portland grew
For every 10 people in Portland in 1975, there were 103.3 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.6 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 2005 and 2010.
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
Portland through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Portland in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
United States · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Portland is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of the United States in 2025, 348 in all, led by New York City, each drawn with an area that matches its people. Countries next door are outlines only.
Area and built-up land · km²
How much land it covers
In 2025, Portland covered 565 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 138 km² of it. That is 99 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 10 by 10 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 6.1 times its size, and its people are 10.3 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 the United States
Its share of the United States
Of every 1,000 people in the United States in 2025, 4 lived in Portland, which is 1.4 million people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares stand for everyone in the United States, one square for every 1,000th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Portland's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 360 Xuzhou China1,402,001
- 361 Niamey Niger1,401,149
- 362 Liuzhou China1,400,880
- 363 Mesa1,398,369
- 364 Portland1,397,788
- 365 Durg India1,393,235
- 366 Valencia Spain1,390,045
- 367 Aboh Nigeria1,374,320
- 368 Abuja Nigeria1,373,722
In the United States, 2025
- 334 Austin1,513,032
- 337 Oakland1,503,319
- 359 Seattle1,403,495
- 363 Mesa1,398,369
- 364 Portland1,397,788
- 370 Fort Lauderdale1,368,027
- 451 Baltimore1,145,219
- 466 Minneapolis [Saint Paul]1,107,243
- 595 Saint Petersburg877,183
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 Portland 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 Portland 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