Topics
Purnia, 
India
461,043 people lived in Purnia in 2025. It is the 1208th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 191st largest in India.
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 Purnia grew
Where Purnia had 10 people in 1975, it had 36.7 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 541,284 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 1995 and 2000.
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
Purnia through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Purnia in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
India · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 2,054 cities in India in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being New Delhi. The ringed dot in colour is Purnia; 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, Purnia covered 62 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 12 km² of it. That is 25 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 5.3 times its size, and its people are 3.7 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 India
Its share of India
Fewer than 1 in every 1,000 people in India lived in Purnia in 2025 — about 1 in 3,226.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 1204 Yanji China461,800
- 1205 Morogoro Tanzania461,634
- 1206 Zhanghua City Taiwan461,552
- 1207 Kismayo Somalia461,302
- 1208 Purnia461,043
- 1209 Nagercoil460,826
- 1210 Kota Bharu Malaysia460,445
- 1211 Elenga Bangladesh459,645
- 1212 Atlanta United States458,225
In India, 2025
- 1186 Kurnool468,997
- 1192 Ichalkaranji465,814
- 1195 Balia465,399
- 1201 Haldwani463,530
- 1208 Purnia461,043
- 1209 Nagercoil460,826
- 1218 Saharsa456,879
- 1221 Raiganj456,239
- 1236 Basti450,449
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 Purnia 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 Purnia 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