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Quetta, 
Pakistan
1,025,211 people lived in Quetta in 2025. It is the 497th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 12th largest in Pakistan.
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 Quetta grew
Where Quetta had 10 people in 1975, it had 46.6 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.2 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 2020 and 2025.
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
Quetta through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Quetta in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Pakistan · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Quetta is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of Pakistan in 2025, 323 in all, led by Karachi, 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, Quetta covered 154 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 33 km² of it. That is 32 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 6 by 6 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 4.7 times its size, and its people are 4.7 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 Pakistan
Its share of Pakistan
Of every 1,000 people in Pakistan in 2025, 4 lived in Quetta, which is 1.0 million people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares stand for everyone in Pakistan, one square for every 1,000th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Quetta's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 493 Thalassery India1,038,647
- 494 Gaza Palestine1,038,285
- 495 Mendoza Argentina1,027,849
- 496 Santos Brazil1,027,752
- 497 Quetta1,025,211
- 498 Mingora1,024,813
- 499 Maceió Brazil1,023,645
- 500 Rotterdam Netherlands1,023,590
- 501 Karbala Iraq1,022,893
In Pakistan, 2025
- 174 Hyderabad2,863,633
- 263 Sialkot1,907,978
- 383 Mardan1,330,031
- 452 Sargodha1,142,723
- 497 Quetta1,025,211
- 498 Mingora1,024,813
- 600 Nowshera872,172
- 613 Abbottabad851,819
- 619 Gujrat846,968
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 Quetta 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 Quetta 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