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Quanzhou, 
China
3,286,129 people lived in Quanzhou in 2025. It is the 144th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 28th largest in China.
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 Quanzhou grew
Where Quanzhou had 10 people in 1975, it had 40.1 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 3.0 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 1980 and 1985.
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
Quanzhou through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Quanzhou in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
China · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: China and its 2,082 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Shanghai). Quanzhou 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, Quanzhou covered 677 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 153 km² of it. That is 47 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 7 by 7 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 7.7 times its size, and its people are 4 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 China
Its share of China
Of every 1,000 people in China in 2025, 2 lived in Quanzhou, which is 3.3 million people.
How to read this: shrink China to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Quanzhou; the grey ones are everybody else, in other cities, in towns and out in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 140 Changchun3,349,934
- 141 Patna India3,309,383
- 142 Nanchang3,299,773
- 143 Nanning3,288,636
- 144 Quanzhou3,286,129
- 145 Washington, D.C. United States3,270,018
- 146 Busan South Korea3,263,221
- 147 Nagpur India3,257,841
- 148 Algiers Algeria3,246,400
In China, 2025
- 138 Changsha3,457,508
- 140 Changchun3,349,934
- 142 Nanchang3,299,773
- 143 Nanning3,288,636
- 144 Quanzhou3,286,129
- 151 Kunming3,228,117
- 161 Ningbo3,094,833
- 164 Shijiazhuang2,990,397
- 171 Fuzhou2,910,985
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 Quanzhou 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 Quanzhou 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