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Shanwei, 
China
464,738 people lived in Shanwei in 2025. It is the 1197th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 226th largest in China.
The UN measures every city in the world the same way, by where the buildings are rather than where the boundary runs, so this figure and Shanwei's own can differ widely. What counts as a city here.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Shanwei grew
Where Shanwei had 10 people in 1975, it had 65.3 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 495,260 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 1995 and 2000.
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
Shanwei through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Shanwei in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
China · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Shanwei is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of China in 2025, 2,082 in all, led by Shanghai, 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, Shanwei covered 49 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 6.5 km² of it. That is 14 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 4 by 4 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 4.1 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
Fewer than 1 in every 1,000 people in China lived in Shanwei in 2025 — about 1 in 3,030.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 1193 Jundiaí Brazil465,531
- 1194 Tongxiang465,450
- 1195 Balia India465,399
- 1196 Manado Indonesia464,793
- 1197 Shanwei464,738
- 1198 San Juan Argentina464,466
- 1199 Meizhou464,343
- 1200 Bijie463,837
- 1201 Haldwani India463,530
In China, 2025
- 1187 Changge468,159
- 1189 Beilun District467,912
- 1190 Yangquan467,148
- 1194 Tongxiang465,450
- 1197 Shanwei464,738
- 1199 Meizhou464,343
- 1200 Bijie463,837
- 1203 Yuhu462,605
- 1204 Yanji461,800
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 Shanwei 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 Shanwei 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