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Saint Petersburg, 
Russia
4,736,499 people lived in Saint Petersburg in 2025. It is the 91st largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 2nd largest in Russia.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Saint Petersburg 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 Saint Petersburg grew
Count 10 people in Saint Petersburg in 1975 and the same count gives 13 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 4.7 million people in 2050.
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
Saint Petersburg through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Saint Petersburg in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Russia · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Saint Petersburg is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of Russia in 2025, 254 in all, led by Moscow, 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, Saint Petersburg covered 509 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 120 km² of it. That is 25 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 44%, and its people have grown by 30%.
How to read this: pale is the whole of the city's land; the stronger square inside it is what is actually built on. The three are drawn to the same scale, so a larger square really is more land, and hatching means the year is the UN's projection rather than a count.
Of every 100 people in Russia
Its share of Russia
Of every 100 people in Russia in 2025, 3 lived in Saint Petersburg, which is 4.7 million people.
How to read this: shrink Russia to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Saint Petersburg; 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
- 87 Hefei China4,867,000
- 88 Islāmābād Pakistan4,860,084
- 89 Kano Nigeria4,840,280
- 90 Hong Kong Hong Kong4,749,543
- 91 Saint Petersburg4,736,499
- 92 Santo Domingo Dominican Republic4,600,064
- 93 Cape Town South Africa4,508,921
- 94 Casablanca Morocco4,457,471
- 95 Mogadishu Somalia4,399,430
In Russia, 2025
- 19 Moscow14,524,753
- 91 Saint Petersburg4,736,499
- 381 Novosibirsk1,331,432
- 432 Nizhny Novgorod1,196,944
- 449 Yekaterinburg1,148,237
- 456 Kazan1,132,941
- 479 Rostov-on-Don1,065,880
- 530 Omsk975,485
- 543 Samara955,599
How to read this: the figure in front of a name is where that city stands among the 12,138 cities the UN counted in 2025, and each bar is its people, on one scale per list. Numbers are missing where a city has fewer than 300,000 people and so has no page of its own.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Saint Petersburg 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 Saint Petersburg 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