Topics
San Francisco, 
United States
3,163,486 people lived in San Francisco in 2025. It is the 155th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 6th largest in the United States.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area San Francisco 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 San Francisco grew
Where San Francisco had 10 people in 1975, it had 14.8 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 3.3 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
San Francisco through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in San Francisco in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
United States · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: the United States and its 348 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is New York City). San Francisco 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, San Francisco covered 915 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 259 km² of it. That is 82 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 9 by 9 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 37%, and its people have grown by 48%.
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 the United States
Its share of the United States
Of every 1,000 people in the United States in 2025, 9 lived in San Francisco, which is 3.2 million people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in the United States; the coloured squares live in San Francisco. The grey rest live in other cities, in towns or in the countryside.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 151 Kunming China3,228,117
- 152 Ouagadougou Burkina Faso3,206,222
- 153 Durban South Africa3,177,927
- 154 Maputo Mozambique3,166,328
- 155 San Francisco3,163,486
- 156 Kalyan-Dombivli India3,163,424
- 157 Guayaquil Ecuador3,157,825
- 158 Salvador Brazil3,135,157
- 159 Gujranwala Pakistan3,121,271
In the United States, 2025
- 27 Los Angeles12,740,420
- 115 Houston3,955,046
- 125 Chicago3,683,385
- 145 Washington, D.C.3,270,018
- 155 San Francisco3,163,486
- 170 Miami2,912,486
- 221 Denver2,265,994
- 225 Philadelphia2,232,420
- 232 Las Vegas2,183,655
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 San Francisco 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 San Francisco 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