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Shillong, 
India
534,861 people lived in Shillong in 2025. It is the 1037th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 164th largest in India.
Like every city on this site, Shillong 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 Shillong grew
Where Shillong had 10 people in 1975, it had 28.7 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 605,358 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 1985 and 1990.
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
Shillong through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Shillong in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
India · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: India and its 2,054 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is New Delhi). Shillong 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, Shillong covered 46 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 9.5 km² of it. That is 18 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 4 by 4 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 67%, and its people are 2.9 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 India
Its share of India
Fewer than 1 in every 1,000 people in India lived in Shillong in 2025 — about 1 in 2,703.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 1033 Ciudad Guayana Venezuela535,164
- 1034 Ndola Zambia535,108
- 1035 Bengbu China535,096
- 1036 Swabi Pakistan535,083
- 1037 Shillong534,861
- 1038 Ahmednagar534,622
- 1039 Joinville Brazil534,074
- 1040 Novo Hamburgo Brazil533,686
- 1041 Kanazawa Japan533,682
In India, 2025
- 1011 Hisar543,775
- 1013 Bulandshahr543,659
- 1024 Tirupati539,275
- 1032 Bettiah535,979
- 1037 Shillong534,861
- 1038 Ahmednagar534,622
- 1053 Rohtak526,540
- 1064 Latur519,913
- 1067 Bhore518,289
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 Shillong 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 Shillong 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