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Sandwip, 
Bangladesh
309,439 people lived in Sandwip in 2025. It is the 1860th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 37th largest in Bangladesh.
This is the UN's built-up area, drawn from satellite pictures and census maps rather than from the city limits, and the two can be a long way apart. The rule behind it.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Sandwip grew
Where Sandwip had 10 people in 1990, it had 43.2 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 370,470 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2000 and 2005. The UN first counts it as a city in 1990, when it passed 50,000 people.
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
Sandwip through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Sandwip in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Bangladesh · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Bangladesh and its 233 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Dhaka). Sandwip 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, Sandwip covered 128 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 4.9 km² of it. That is 16 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 4 by 4 metres. Since 1995, its built-up land has grown to 2.9 times its size, and its people have grown by 50%.
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 Bangladesh
Its share of Bangladesh
Of every 1,000 people in Bangladesh in 2025, 2 lived in Sandwip, which is 309,439 people.
How to read this: shrink Bangladesh to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Sandwip; 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
- 1856 Beed India310,278
- 1857 Taubaté Brazil310,170
- 1858 Huairou China309,856
- 1859 Kindu Democratic Republic of the Congo309,727
- 1860 Sandwip309,439
- 1861 Moshi Tanzania309,202
- 1862 Xichang China309,170
- 1863 Madhepura India309,065
- 1864 Nagasaki Japan308,986
In Bangladesh, 2025
- 1688 Naogaon338,623
- 1744 Faridpur329,383
- 1786 Shariatpur321,804
- 1809 Nazirhat317,240
- 1860 Sandwip309,439
- 1880 Golapganj306,017
- 1909 Shaistaganj300,465
- 1948 Moulvibazar297,098
- 2141 Chengarchar271,704
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 Sandwip are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 1990 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 Sandwip 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