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Porto Alegre, 
Brazil
1,755,917 people lived in Porto Alegre in 2025. It is the 281st largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 11th largest in Brazil.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Porto Alegre 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 Porto Alegre grew
Count 10 people in Porto Alegre in 1975 and the same count gives 22 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.7 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 1975 and 1980.
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
Porto Alegre through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Porto Alegre in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Brazil · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Porto Alegre is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of Brazil in 2025, 356 in all, led by São Paulo, 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, Porto Alegre covered 337 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 87 km² of it. That is 49 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 are 2.2 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 Brazil
Its share of Brazil
Of every 1,000 people in Brazil in 2025, 8 lived in Porto Alegre, which is 1.8 million people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares stand for everyone in Brazil, one square for every 1,000th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Porto Alegre's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 277 Yinchuan China1,792,788
- 278 Xiamen City China1,788,492
- 279 Handan China1,777,172
- 280 Hamburg Germany1,759,377
- 281 Porto Alegre1,755,917
- 282 Slawi Indonesia1,733,437
- 283 Aligarh India1,729,663
- 284 Luoyang China1,727,744
- 285 El Mansura Egypt1,712,781
In Brazil, 2025
- 200 Curitiba2,475,352
- 214 Goiânia2,320,596
- 217 Manaus2,277,352
- 233 Belém2,180,454
- 281 Porto Alegre1,755,917
- 292 Sao Goncalo1,679,246
- 299 Campinas1,631,432
- 328 Brasília1,521,148
- 404 São Luís1,264,379
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 Porto Alegre 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 Porto Alegre 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