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Sanya, 
China
398,270 people lived in Sanya in 2025. It is the 1422nd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 262nd largest in China.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Sanya 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 Sanya grew
Count 10 people in Sanya in 1985 and the same count gives 47.4 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 395,273 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2000 and 2005. The UN first counts it as a city in 1985, 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
Sanya through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Sanya in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
China · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: China and its 2,082 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Shanghai). Sanya 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, Sanya covered 66 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 13 km² of it. That is 31 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 6 by 6 metres. Since 1985, its built-up land has grown to 4.3 times its size, and its people are 4.7 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 China
Its share of China
Fewer than 1 in every 1,000 people in China lived in Sanya in 2025 — about 1 in 3,571.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 1418 Wuzhou398,593
- 1419 Stockton United States398,470
- 1420 Biratnagar Nepal398,453
- 1421 Pratapgarh India398,315
- 1422 Sanya398,270
- 1423 Pingliang398,221
- 1424 Strasbourg France398,175
- 1425 Volta Redonda Brazil398,107
- 1426 Bergamo Italy398,050
In China, 2025
- 1386 Zhaodong407,507
- 1394 Daqing405,480
- 1395 Jiashan405,454
- 1418 Wuzhou398,593
- 1422 Sanya398,270
- 1423 Pingliang398,221
- 1429 Heze397,886
- 1434 Xinxing395,115
- 1440 Danzhou City394,343
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 Sanya are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 1985 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 Sanya 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