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Tacloban, 
Philippines
285,095 people lived in Tacloban in 2025. It is the 2042nd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 18th largest in the Philippines.
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 Tacloban'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 Tacloban grew
Count 10 people in Tacloban in 1975 and the same count gives 33.1 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 319,762 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 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
Tacloban through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Tacloban in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Philippines · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 114 cities in the Philippines in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Manila. The ringed dot in colour is Tacloban; 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, Tacloban covered 64 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 7.2 km² of it. That is 25 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 5.1 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 the Philippines
Its share of the Philippines
Of every 1,000 people in the Philippines in 2025, 2 lived in Tacloban, which is 285,095 people.
How to read this: shrink the Philippines to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Tacloban; 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
- 2036 Gondia India285,870
- 2037 Shikarpur Pakistan285,859
- 2039 Modiin-Maccabim-Reut Israel285,763
- 2040 La Ceiba Honduras285,756
- 2042 Tacloban285,095
- 2046 Zakiganj India284,125
- 2048 Cabimas Venezuela283,656
- 2049 Poway United States283,508
- 2050 Koutiala Mali283,496
In the Philippines, 2025
- 1676 Iligan341,172
- 1689 Naga338,596
- 1777 Lucena323,308
- 1890 Tagum303,614
- 2042 Tacloban285,095
- 2097 Binangonan276,785
- 2099 Legazpi276,662
- 2101 San Pablo276,250
- 2132 Cabanatuan272,890
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 Tacloban 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 Tacloban 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