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Southend-on-Sea, 
United Kingdom
280,158 people lived in Southend-on-Sea in 2025. It is the 2075th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 24th largest in the United Kingdom.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Southend-on-Sea 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 Southend-on-Sea grew
Where Southend-on-Sea had 10 people in 1975, it had 12.2 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 373,216 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 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
Southend-on-Sea through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Southend-on-Sea in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
United Kingdom · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 150 cities in the United Kingdom in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being London. The ringed dot in colour is Southend-on-Sea; 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, Southend-on-Sea covered 82 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 18 km² of it. That is 66 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 8 by 8 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 42%, and its people have grown by 22%.
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 the United Kingdom
Its share of the United Kingdom
Of every 1,000 people in the United Kingdom in 2025, 4 lived in Southend-on-Sea, which is 280,158 people.
How to read this: shrink the United Kingdom to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Southend-on-Sea; the grey ones are everybody else, in other cities, in towns and out in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 2071 Shankarpur India280,248
- 2072 Tundla India280,215
- 2073 Kofu Japan280,212
- 2074 Mary Turkmenistan280,172
- 2075 Southend-on-Sea280,158
- 2076 Copperfield United States279,805
- 2079 Mweka Democratic Republic of the Congo279,312
- 2080 Ekma India279,229
- 2081 Salalah Oman279,161
In the United Kingdom, 2025
- 1647 Southampton347,446
- 1728 Stoke-on-Trent332,542
- 1783 Hull322,100
- 1877 Wakefield306,684
- 2075 Southend-on-Sea280,158
- 2112 Reading274,632
- 2256 Gillingham258,422
How to read this: the number before each name is its place among all 12,138 cities in the world in 2025; bars are people, on one scale per list. Only cities that reach 300,000 people have a page here, so a gap in the numbers is a smaller city.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Southend-on-Sea 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 Southend-on-Sea 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