Topics
Shanghai, 
China
29,558,908 people lived in Shanghai in 2025. It is the 5th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in China.
Like every city on this site, Shanghai is counted as a built-up area seen from above rather than as a city government's territory. Why that changes the number.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Shanghai grew
For every 10 people in Shanghai in 1975, there were 65.1 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 34.9 million people in 2050. It passed ten million people between 1990 and 1995.
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
Shanghai through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Shanghai 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. Shanghai 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, Shanghai covered 3,130 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 803 km² of it. That is 27 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 6 times its size, and its people are 6.5 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 China
Its share of China
Of every 100 people in China in 2025, 2 lived in Shanghai, which is 29.6 million people.
How to read this: 100 squares stand for everyone in China, one square for every 100th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Shanghai's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 1 Jakarta Indonesia41,913,860
- 2 Dhaka Bangladesh36,585,479
- 3 Tokyo Japan33,412,512
- 4 New Delhi India30,222,405
- 5 Shanghai29,558,908
- 6 Guangzhou27,563,372
- 7 Cairo Egypt25,566,102
- 8 Manila Philippines24,735,305
- 9 Kolkata India22,549,738
In China, 2025
- 5 Shanghai29,558,908
- 6 Guangzhou27,563,372
- 16 Beijing17,013,303
- 23 Shenzhen13,878,396
- 43 Suzhou7,731,101
- 45 Hangzhou7,500,208
- 46 Wuhan7,363,548
- 47 Tianjin7,285,342
- 51 Chongqing7,071,073
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 Shanghai 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 Shanghai 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