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Stockholm, 
Sweden
1,500,093 people lived in Stockholm in 2025. It is the 339th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in Sweden, where it is the capital.
This is the UN's built-up area, drawn from satellite pictures and census maps rather than from the city limits, and the two can be a long way apart. The rule behind it.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Stockholm grew
Count 10 people in Stockholm in 1975 and the same count gives 19.1 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.7 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 2000 and 2005.
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
Stockholm through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Stockholm in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Sweden · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 17 cities in Sweden in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there. The ringed dot in colour is Stockholm; 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, Stockholm covered 338 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 54 km² of it. That is 36 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 6 by 6 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.3 times its size, and its people have grown by 91%.
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 Sweden
Its share of Sweden
Of every 100 people in Sweden in 2025, 14 lived in Stockholm, which is 1.5 million people.
How to read this: 100 squares, one for every 100th person in Sweden; the coloured squares live in Stockholm. The grey rest live in other cities, in towns or in the countryside.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 335 Toluca Mexico1,505,035
- 336 Kananga Democratic Republic of the Congo1,504,370
- 337 Oakland United States1,503,319
- 338 Batam City Indonesia1,500,354
- 339 Stockholm1,500,093
- 340 Baotou China1,491,964
- 341 Anyang China1,489,112
- 342 Moradabad India1,484,611
- 343 Taizhou China1,483,994
In Sweden, 2025
- 339 Stockholm1,500,093
- 973 Gothenburg562,945
- 1806 Malmo318,242
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 Stockholm 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 Stockholm 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