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Shaoguan, 
China
422,509 people lived in Shaoguan in 2025. It is the 1324th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 248th 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 Shaoguan'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 Shaoguan grew
Where Shaoguan had 10 people in 1975, it had 58.3 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 495,466 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
Shaoguan through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Shaoguan 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). Shaoguan 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, Shaoguan covered 61 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 14 km² of it. That is 34 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 6 by 6 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 4.4 times its size, and its people are 5.8 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 Shaoguan in 2025 — about 1 in 3,333.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 1320 Deoghar India423,674
- 1321 Jingdezhen423,386
- 1322 Porto Velho Brazil422,943
- 1323 Sumgayit Azerbaijan422,836
- 1324 Shaoguan422,509
- 1325 Bremen Germany422,414
- 1326 Niigata Japan422,238
- 1327 Jijiga Ethiopia422,225
- 1328 Longyan422,165
In China, 2025
- 1314 Longquanyi426,144
- 1317 Ranghulu424,460
- 1318 Ziyang424,328
- 1321 Jingdezhen423,386
- 1324 Shaoguan422,509
- 1328 Longyan422,165
- 1348 Taixing416,677
- 1350 Lishui416,469
- 1352 Yixing415,587
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 Shaoguan 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 Shaoguan 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