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Tallinn, 
Estonia
439,526 people lived in Tallinn in 2025. It is the 1269th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in Estonia, where it is the capital.
This is the UN's built-up area, drawn from satellite pictures and census maps rather than from the city limits, and the two can be a long way apart. The rule behind it.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Tallinn grew
Count 10 people in Tallinn in 1975 and the same count gives 12.3 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 412,430 people in 2050.
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
Tallinn through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Tallinn in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Estonia · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Estonia and its 2 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people. Tallinn 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, Tallinn covered 119 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 21 km² of it. That is 47 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 7 by 7 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 58%, and its people have grown by 23%.
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 Estonia
Its share of Estonia
Of every 100 people in Estonia in 2025, 33 lived in Tallinn, which is 439,526 people.
How to read this: 100 squares stand for everyone in Estonia, one square for every 100th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Tallinn's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 1265 Zhanjiang China440,587
- 1266 Manizales Colombia440,407
- 1267 Gemena Democratic Republic of the Congo440,327
- 1268 Maragha Egypt440,011
- 1269 Tallinn439,526
- 1270 Dindigul India438,809
- 1271 Quelimane Mozambique438,554
- 1272 Buenaventura Colombia438,063
- 1273 Tây Ninh Vietnam437,816
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 Tallinn 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 Tallinn 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