Topics
Rouen, 
France
311,071 people lived in Rouen in 2025. It is the 1844th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 12th largest in France.
The UN measures every city in the world the same way, by where the buildings are rather than where the boundary runs, so this figure and Rouen's own can differ widely. What counts as a city here.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Rouen grew
Rouen had about as many people in 2025 as in 1975.
On the UN's projection it will have 318,323 people in 2050.
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
Rouen through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Rouen in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
France · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: France and its 71 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Paris). Rouen 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, Rouen covered 95 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 25 km² of it. That is 79 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 9 by 9 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 50%, and its people are about 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 France
Its share of France
Of every 1,000 people in France in 2025, 5 lived in Rouen, which is 311,071 people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares stand for everyone in France, one square for every 1,000th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Rouen's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 1840 Holguín Cuba312,173
- 1841 Simri Bakhtiarpur India311,434
- 1842 Oshawa Canada311,294
- 1843 Arlington United States311,130
- 1844 Rouen311,071
- 1845 Modesto United States310,818
- 1846 Pachuca Mexico310,805
- 1847 Brno Czechia310,796
- 1848 Cluj-Napoca Romania310,650
In France, 2025
- 1345 Nice418,294
- 1424 Strasbourg398,175
- 1587 Grenoble359,128
- 1772 Montpellier324,059
- 1844 Rouen311,071
- 1925 Toulon298,777
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 Rouen 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 Rouen 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