Topics
Sylhet, 
Bangladesh
1,242,548 people lived in Sylhet in 2025. It is the 409th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 6th largest in Bangladesh.
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 Sylhet'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 Sylhet grew
Count 10 people in Sylhet in 1975 and the same count gives 33.3 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.7 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 2010 and 2015.
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
Sylhet through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Sylhet in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Bangladesh · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Sylhet is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of Bangladesh in 2025, 233 in all, led by Dhaka, 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, Sylhet covered 115 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 17 km² of it. That is 14 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 4 by 4 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.8 times its size, and its people are 3.3 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 Bangladesh
Its share of Bangladesh
Of every 1,000 people in Bangladesh in 2025, 7 lived in Sylhet, which is 1.2 million people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares stand for everyone in Bangladesh, one square for every 1,000th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Sylhet's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 405 Herat Afghanistan1,259,425
- 406 Sendai Japan1,256,440
- 407 Bujumbura Burundi1,246,960
- 408 Tiruppur India1,242,837
- 409 Sylhet1,242,548
- 410 Montevideo Uruguay1,240,244
- 411 Tripoli Libya1,239,823
- 412 Gyanpur India1,237,249
- 413 Amsterdam Netherlands1,235,985
In Bangladesh, 2025
- 83 Chattogram4,983,553
- 133 Savar3,557,381
- 169 Brahmanbaria2,914,727
- 387 Kishoreganj1,324,096
- 409 Sylhet1,242,548
- 475 Khulna1,074,134
- 488 Kutubdia1,053,339
- 560 Chandanaish928,788
- 709 Rajshahi755,347
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 Sylhet 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 Sylhet 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