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Portsmouth, 
United Kingdom
488,385 people lived in Portsmouth in 2025. It is the 1137th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 13th largest in the United Kingdom.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Portsmouth 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 Portsmouth grew
Where Portsmouth had 10 people in 1975, it had 13.1 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 558,084 people in 2050.
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
Portsmouth through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Portsmouth in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
United Kingdom · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: the United Kingdom and its 150 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is London). Portsmouth 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, Portsmouth covered 157 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 30 km² of it. That is 62 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 8 by 8 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 40%, 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 the United Kingdom
Its share of the United Kingdom
Of every 1,000 people in the United Kingdom in 2025, 7 lived in Portsmouth, which is 488,385 people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in the United Kingdom; the coloured squares live in Portsmouth. The grey rest live in other cities, in towns or in the countryside.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 1133 Cusco Peru490,968
- 1134 Quebec Canada490,451
- 1135 Kakinada India488,958
- 1136 Provo United States488,429
- 1137 Portsmouth488,385
- 1138 Bazarati India487,581
- 1139 Dimapur India487,500
- 1140 Timerein Sudan486,586
- 1141 Yazd Iran485,381
In the United Kingdom, 2025
- 875 Bristol615,703
- 1001 Sheffield549,695
- 1046 Leicester530,264
- 1058 Edinburgh521,784
- 1137 Portsmouth488,385
- 1188 Brighton467,937
- 1262 Belfast441,925
- 1308 Coventry427,678
- 1455 Cardiff390,692
How to read this: names are in order of size, the leading number being each city's rank among all 12,138 in 2025; the bars share a scale within a list. A jump in the ranks means a city under 300,000 people, which is not given a page here.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Portsmouth 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 Portsmouth 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