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Cities · China · 31.3° N, 120.7° E
Suzhou, 
China
7,731,101 people lived in Suzhou (31.3° N, 120.7° E) in 2025. It is the 43rd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 5th largest in China.
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 Suzhou grew
Count 10 people in Suzhou in 1975 and the same count gives 83.1 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 7.6 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
Suzhou through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Suzhou 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). Suzhou 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, Suzhou covered 1,169 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 266 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 14.6 times its size, and its people are 8.3 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 China
Its share of China
Of every 1,000 people in China in 2025, 5 lived in Suzhou, which is 7.7 million people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares stand for everyone in China, one square for every 1,000th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Suzhou's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 39 Taipei Taiwan9,136,792
- 40 Bandung Indonesia8,909,104
- 41 Kuala Lumpur Malaysia8,443,731
- 42 Dar es Salaam Tanzania7,795,114
- 43 Suzhou7,731,101
- 44 Ahmedabad India7,632,408
- 45 Hangzhou7,500,208
- 46 Wuhan7,363,548
- 47 Tianjin7,285,342
In China, 2025
- 5 Shanghai29,558,908
- 6 Guangzhou27,563,372
- 16 Beijing17,013,303
- 23 Shenzhen13,878,396
- 43 Suzhou7,731,101
- 45 Hangzhou7,500,208
- 46 Wuhan7,363,548
- 47 Tianjin7,285,342
- 51 Chongqing7,071,073
How to read this: the figure in front of a name is where that city stands among the 12,138 cities the UN counted in 2025, and each bar is its people, on one scale per list. Numbers are missing where a city has fewer than 300,000 people and so has no page of its own.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Suzhou 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 Suzhou 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