Topics
Rotterdam, 
Netherlands
1,023,590 people lived in Rotterdam in 2025. It is the 500th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 2nd largest in the Netherlands.
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 Rotterdam grew
Where Rotterdam had 10 people in 1975, it had 12.3 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.1 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: 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
Rotterdam through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Rotterdam in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Netherlands · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 44 cities in the Netherlands in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Amsterdam. The ringed dot in colour is Rotterdam; 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, Rotterdam covered 312 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 80 km² of it. That is 78 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 9 by 9 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2 times its size, and its people have grown by 23%.
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 Netherlands
Its share of the Netherlands
Of every 100 people in the Netherlands in 2025, 6 lived in Rotterdam, which is 1.0 million people.
How to read this: 100 squares, one for every 100th person in the Netherlands; the coloured squares live in Rotterdam. 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
- 496 Santos Brazil1,027,752
- 497 Quetta Pakistan1,025,211
- 498 Mingora Pakistan1,024,813
- 499 Maceió Brazil1,023,645
- 500 Rotterdam1,023,590
- 501 Karbala Iraq1,022,893
- 502 Marrakesh Morocco1,021,530
- 503 Otite Nigeria1,020,218
- 504 Tanta Egypt1,018,577
In the Netherlands, 2025
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 Rotterdam 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 Rotterdam 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