Topics
Seattle, 
United States
1,403,495 people lived in Seattle in 2025. It is the 359th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 19th largest in the United States.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Seattle 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 Seattle grew
Count 10 people in Seattle in 1975 and the same count gives 71.9 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.7 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 2010 and 2015.
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
Seattle through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Seattle in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
United States · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 348 cities in the United States in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being New York City. The ringed dot in colour is Seattle; 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, Seattle covered 630 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 121 km² of it. That is 86 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 9 by 9 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 5.4 times its size, and its people are 7.2 times as many.
How to read this: the outer pale square stands for all the land the city covers, and the solid square inside it for the part with buildings, roads and the like on it. All three squares share a scale, so you can compare them by eye. A hatched one is a year the UN has projected.
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, 4 lived in Seattle, which is 1.4 million people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares stand for everyone in the United States, one square for every 1,000th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Seattle's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 355 Aba Nigeria1,428,069
- 356 Al Zaqaziq Egypt1,416,734
- 357 Asyut Egypt1,406,963
- 358 Brussels Belgium1,406,499
- 359 Seattle1,403,495
- 360 Xuzhou China1,402,001
- 361 Niamey Niger1,401,149
- 362 Liuzhou China1,400,880
- 363 Mesa1,398,369
In the United States, 2025
- 329 Dallas1,521,118
- 333 Sacramento1,514,661
- 334 Austin1,513,032
- 337 Oakland1,503,319
- 359 Seattle1,403,495
- 363 Mesa1,398,369
- 364 Portland1,397,788
- 370 Fort Lauderdale1,368,027
- 451 Baltimore1,145,219
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 Seattle 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 Seattle 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