Topics
Salt Lake City, 
United States
542,449 people lived in Salt Lake City in 2025. It is the 1015th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 35th largest in the United States.
Like every city on this site, Salt Lake City is counted as a built-up area seen from above rather than as a city government's territory. Why that changes the number.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Salt Lake City grew
Count 10 people in Salt Lake City in 1980 and the same count gives 87.9 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 673,770 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 1990 and 1995. The UN first counts it as a city in 1980, when it passed 50,000 people.
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
Salt Lake City through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Salt Lake City in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
United States · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Salt Lake City is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of the United States in 2025, 348 in all, led by New York City, 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, Salt Lake City covered 226 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 61 km² of it. That is 112 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 11 by 11 metres. Since 1980, its built-up land has grown to 7.2 times its size, and its people are 8.8 times 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 the United States
Its share of the United States
Of every 1,000 people in the United States in 2025, 2 lived in Salt Lake City, which is 542,449 people.
How to read this: shrink the United States to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Salt Lake City; 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
- 1011 Hisar India543,775
- 1012 Huazhou China543,709
- 1013 Bulandshahr India543,659
- 1014 Khabarovsk Russia543,422
- 1015 Salt Lake City542,449
- 1016 Djelfa Algeria542,414
- 1017 Leipzig Germany542,313
- 1018 Xalapa Mexico542,213
- 1019 Durango Mexico541,787
In the United States, 2025
- 873 West Palm Beach617,035
- 898 El Paso605,731
- 965 Norfolk567,473
- 994 Tampa551,988
- 1015 Salt Lake City542,449
- 1022 Honolulu540,683
- 1098 Bakersfield503,676
- 1136 Provo488,429
- 1165 Orlando477,249
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 Salt Lake City are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 1980 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 Salt Lake City 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