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Santa Cruz de la Sierra, 
Bolivia
1,980,432 people lived in Santa Cruz de la Sierra in 2025. It is the 249th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 2nd largest in Bolivia.
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 Santa Cruz de la Sierra grew
Where Santa Cruz de la Sierra had 10 people in 1975, it had 122.3 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 2.8 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 1995 and 2000.
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
Santa Cruz de la Sierra through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Santa Cruz de la Sierra in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Bolivia · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Santa Cruz de la Sierra is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of Bolivia in 2025, 12 in all, led by La Paz, 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, Santa Cruz de la Sierra covered 313 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 93 km² of it. That is 47 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 7 by 7 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 4.6 times its size, and its people are 12.2 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 Bolivia
Its share of Bolivia
Of every 100 people in Bolivia in 2025, 16 lived in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, which is 2.0 million people.
How to read this: shrink Bolivia to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Santa Cruz de la Sierra; 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
- 245 Dhanbad India2,020,181
- 246 Mehsi India2,018,610
- 247 Nashik India1,996,763
- 248 Hohhot China1,993,292
- 249 Santa Cruz de la Sierra1,980,432
- 250 Baku Azerbaijan1,977,897
- 251 Phoenix United States1,972,021
- 252 Sapporo Japan1,964,519
- 253 Jamshedpur India1,956,840
In Bolivia, 2025
- 244 La Paz2,024,413
- 249 Santa Cruz de la Sierra1,980,432
- 377 Cochabamba1,346,672
- 1643 Oruro347,830
- 2030 Sucre286,383
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 Santa Cruz de la Sierra 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 Santa Cruz de la Sierra 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