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Cities · China · 33.6° N, 117.0° E
Suzhou, 
China
785,949 people lived in Suzhou (33.6° N, 117.0° E) in 2025. It is the 674th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 102nd largest in China.
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 Suzhou'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 Suzhou grew
For every 10 people in Suzhou in 1975, there were 49.6 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 662,192 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
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: Suzhou is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of China in 2025, 2,082 in all, led by Shanghai, 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, Suzhou covered 81 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 21 km² of it. That is 26 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 3.7 times its size, and its people are 5 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, 1 lived in Suzhou, which is 785,949 people.
How to read this: shrink China to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Suzhou; 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
- 670 Dnipro Ukraine792,115
- 671 Fergana Uzbekistan791,877
- 672 Kota Kinabalu Malaysia789,885
- 673 Yingkou786,031
- 674 Suzhou785,949
- 675 Kandy Sri Lanka785,519
- 676 Krasnodar Russia783,125
- 677 Yingkou782,210
- 678 Nanyang782,146
In China, 2025
- 657 Jining803,706
- 664 Qinhuangdao797,748
- 667 Jincheng794,234
- 673 Yingkou786,031
- 674 Suzhou785,949
- 677 Yingkou782,210
- 678 Nanyang782,146
- 679 Zhenjiang781,639
- 682 Pingdingshan779,154
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