Topics
Swabi, 
Pakistan
535,083 people lived in Swabi in 2025. It is the 1036th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 28th largest in Pakistan.
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 Swabi'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 Swabi grew
Where Swabi had 10 people in 1990, it had 49.5 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 864,712 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2005 and 2010. The UN first counts it as a city in 1990, when it passed 50,000 people.
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
Swabi through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Swabi in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Pakistan · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 323 cities in Pakistan in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Karachi. The ringed dot in colour is Swabi; 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, Swabi covered 105 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 15 km² of it. That is 28 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1990, its built-up land has grown to 6.8 times its size, and its people are 4.9 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 Pakistan
Its share of Pakistan
Of every 1,000 people in Pakistan in 2025, 2 lived in Swabi, which is 535,083 people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in Pakistan; the coloured squares live in Swabi. 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
- 1032 Bettiah India535,979
- 1033 Ciudad Guayana Venezuela535,164
- 1034 Ndola Zambia535,108
- 1035 Bengbu China535,096
- 1036 Swabi535,083
- 1037 Shillong India534,861
- 1038 Ahmednagar India534,622
- 1039 Joinville Brazil534,074
- 1040 Novo Hamburgo Brazil533,686
In Pakistan, 2025
- 871 Larkana618,408
- 890 Kasur609,468
- 956 Dera Ghazi Khan572,505
- 959 Jhang571,359
- 1036 Swabi535,083
- 1060 Shabqadar521,259
- 1061 Shahkot520,664
- 1094 Kohat506,145
- 1097 Mansehra503,920
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 Swabi are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 1990 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 Swabi 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