Topics
Reading, 
United Kingdom
274,632 people lived in Reading in 2025. It is the 2112th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 25th largest in the United Kingdom.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Reading 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 Reading grew
Count 10 people in Reading in 1975 and the same count gives 19.2 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 340,857 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2010 and 2015.
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
Reading through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Reading in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
United Kingdom · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 150 cities in the United Kingdom in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being London. The ringed dot in colour is Reading; 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, Reading covered 73 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 17 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 76%, and its people have grown by 92%.
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, 4 lived in Reading, which is 274,632 people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in the United Kingdom; the coloured squares live in Reading. 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
- 2108 Pinggu China274,753
- 2109 Koléa Algeria274,748
- 2110 Ambato Ecuador274,672
- 2111 Pucallpa Peru274,639
- 2112 Reading274,632
- 2113 San Salvador de Jujuy Argentina274,625
- 2115 RICCO Industrial Area India274,572
- 2116 Gaithersburg United States274,439
- 2117 Xianning China274,146
In the United Kingdom, 2025
- 1728 Stoke-on-Trent332,542
- 1783 Hull322,100
- 1877 Wakefield306,684
- 2075 Southend-on-Sea280,158
- 2112 Reading274,632
- 2256 Gillingham258,422
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 Reading 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 Reading 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