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Surat, 
India
6,908,925 people lived in Surat in 2025. It is the 53rd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 9th largest in India.
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 Surat'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 Surat grew
Where Surat had 10 people in 1975, it had 72.3 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 8.0 million people in 2050. It passed five million people between 2010 and 2015.
projected (after 2025) · how sure the UN is: high moderate low
How to read this: one column every five years, 1975 to 2050; its height is the number of people. Hatched columns are the UN's projection. The thin strip beneath says how sure the UN is of each figure: the stronger the colour, the surer. A blank means the place was not on the UN's list of cities that year.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Surat through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Surat in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
India · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Surat is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of India in 2025, 2,054 in all, led by New Delhi, 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, Surat covered 287 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 60 km² of it. That is 9 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 3 by 3 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 6.2 times its size, and its people are 7.2 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 India
Its share of India
Of every 1,000 people in India in 2025, 5 lived in Surat, which is 6.9 million people.
How to read this: shrink India to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Surat; 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
- 49 Nagoya Japan7,146,160
- 50 Johannesburg South Africa7,077,175
- 51 Chongqing China7,071,073
- 52 Riyadh Saudi Arabia6,916,417
- 53 Surat6,908,925
- 54 Surabaya Indonesia6,843,503
- 55 Pune6,817,951
- 56 Khartoum Sudan6,809,355
- 57 Nanjing China6,800,676
In India, 2025
- 29 Chennai11,153,205
- 34 Hajipur9,941,510
- 37 Hyderabad9,190,795
- 44 Ahmedabad7,632,408
- 53 Surat6,908,925
- 55 Pune6,817,951
- 66 Kozhikode6,123,872
- 80 Kochi5,077,670
- 82 Lucknow5,052,444
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 Surat 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 Surat 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