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Samarinda, 
Indonesia
1,325,554 people lived in Samarinda in 2025. It is the 386th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 18th largest in Indonesia.
Like every city on this site, Samarinda 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 Samarinda grew
Count 10 people in Samarinda in 1975 and the same count gives 72.5 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 2.1 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 2015 and 2020.
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
Samarinda through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Samarinda in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Indonesia · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 389 cities in Indonesia in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Jakarta. The ringed dot in colour is Samarinda; 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, Samarinda covered 195 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 29 km² of it. That is 22 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 3.9 times its size, and its people are 7.3 times as many.
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 Indonesia
Its share of Indonesia
Of every 1,000 people in Indonesia in 2025, 5 lived in Samarinda, which is 1.3 million people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares stand for everyone in Indonesia, one square for every 1,000th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Samarinda's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 382 Purwokerto1,331,010
- 383 Mardan Pakistan1,330,031
- 384 Cần Thơ Vietnam1,327,741
- 385 Zhongshan China1,326,078
- 386 Samarinda1,325,554
- 387 Kishoreganj Bangladesh1,324,096
- 388 Anshan China1,322,386
- 389 Managua Nicaragua1,315,865
- 390 Yichang China1,314,779
In Indonesia, 2025
- 318 Cirebon1,566,821
- 326 Surakarta1,538,599
- 338 Batam City1,500,354
- 382 Purwokerto1,331,010
- 386 Samarinda1,325,554
- 427 Pekanbaru1,208,872
- 436 Padang1,184,342
- 438 Bandar Lampung1,184,054
- 514 Mataram997,132
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 Samarinda 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 Samarinda 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