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Putian, 
China
1,871,858 people lived in Putian in 2025. It is the 269th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 41st largest in China.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Putian 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 Putian grew
Where Putian had 10 people in 1975, it had 53 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.7 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 1995 and 2000.
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
Putian through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Putian in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
China · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 2,082 cities in China in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Shanghai. The ringed dot in colour is Putian; 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, Putian covered 332 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 56 km² of it. That is 30 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 10.7 times its size, and its people are 5.3 times as many.
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 China
Its share of China
Of every 1,000 people in China in 2025, 1 lived in Putian, which is 1.9 million people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares stand for everyone in China, one square for every 1,000th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Putian's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 265 Malang Indonesia1,899,616
- 266 Kaduna Nigeria1,890,448
- 267 Warsaw Poland1,882,756
- 268 Monrovia Liberia1,879,092
- 269 Putian1,871,858
- 270 Port-au-Prince Haiti1,868,268
- 271 Benin City Nigeria1,845,432
- 272 Isfahan Iran1,844,409
- 273 Pretoria South Africa1,836,166
In China, 2025
- 215 Tangshan2,286,763
- 218 Lanzhou2,272,104
- 234 Cixi2,177,489
- 248 Hohhot1,993,292
- 269 Putian1,871,858
- 277 Yinchuan1,792,788
- 278 Xiamen City1,788,492
- 279 Handan1,777,172
- 284 Luoyang1,727,744
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 Putian 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 Putian 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