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Sahiwal, 
Pakistan
730,463 people lived in Sahiwal in 2025. It is the 733rd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 20th largest in Pakistan.
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 Sahiwal'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 Sahiwal grew
Count 10 people in Sahiwal in 1975 and the same count gives 37.6 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.0 million people in 2050. On the UN's projection it passes a million people between 2045 and 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
Sahiwal through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Sahiwal in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Pakistan · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Sahiwal 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, Sahiwal covered 78 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 15 km² of it. That is 20 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 3.6 times its size, and its people are 3.8 times as many.
How to read this: the outer pale square stands for all the land the city covers, and the solid square inside it for the part with buildings, roads and the like on it. All three squares share a scale, so you can compare them by eye. A hatched one is a year the UN has projected.
Of every 100 people in Pakistan
Its share of Pakistan
Of every 1,000 people in Pakistan in 2025, 3 lived in Sahiwal, which is 730,463 people.
How to read this: shrink Pakistan to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Sahiwal; 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
- 729 Kocaeli Türkiye737,380
- 730 Benxi China734,933
- 731 Nellore India732,235
- 732 Columbus United States731,335
- 733 Sahiwal730,463
- 734 Lu'an China729,998
- 735 Tulungagung Indonesia728,924
- 736 Balikpapan Indonesia728,771
- 737 Zhumadian China727,923
In Pakistan, 2025
- 619 Gujrat846,968
- 650 Sukkur812,885
- 684 Bahawalpur776,611
- 706 Taxila757,451
- 733 Sahiwal730,463
- 777 Rahim Yar Khan693,373
- 787 Okara683,747
- 869 Bannu620,328
- 871 Larkana618,408
How to read this: the number before each name is its place among all 12,138 cities in the world in 2025; bars are people, on one scale per list. Only cities that reach 300,000 people have a page here, so a gap in the numbers is a smaller city.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Sahiwal 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 Sahiwal 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