Topics
Tainan, 
Taiwan
979,987 people lived in Tainan in 2025. It is the 526th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 4th largest in Taiwan.
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 Tainan'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 Tainan grew
Count 10 people in Tainan in 1975 and the same count gives 13.5 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 739,975 people in 2050. It passed a million people between 1980 and 1985.
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
Tainan through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Tainan in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Taiwan · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Taiwan and its 21 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Taipei). Tainan 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, Tainan covered 203 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 55 km² of it. That is 56 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 7 by 7 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2 times its size, and its people have grown by 35%.
How to read this: each pale square is the city's whole area, the strong square inside it the part that is built on; one scale for all three, so a bigger square is more land. Hatched is the UN's projection.
Of every 100 people in Taiwan
Its share of Taiwan
Of every 100 people in Taiwan in 2025, 4 lived in Tainan, which is 979,987 people.
How to read this: 100 squares, one for every 100th person in Taiwan; the coloured squares live in Tainan. 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
- 522 Linyi China987,615
- 523 Kharameh Iran983,056
- 524 Edmonton Canada981,522
- 525 Jambi Indonesia980,534
- 526 Tainan979,987
- 527 Zhuzhou China979,244
- 528 Pekalongan Indonesia978,519
- 529 Arequipa Peru977,496
- 530 Omsk Russia975,485
In Taiwan, 2025
- 39 Taipei9,136,792
- 220 Taichung2,268,685
- 231 Kaohsiung2,187,455
- 526 Tainan979,987
- 773 Hsinchu695,677
- 1206 Zhanghua City461,552
- 1280 Chiayi436,393
- 1855 Yuanlin City310,380
- 3451 Pingtung City175,377
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 Tainan 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 Tainan 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