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Tangshan, 
China
2,286,763 people lived in Tangshan in 2025. It is the 215th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 37th largest in China.
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 Tangshan grew
Where Tangshan had 10 people in 1975, it had 31.9 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 2.4 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 1985 and 1990.
projected (after 2025) · how sure the UN is: high moderate low
How to read this: each column is one of the UN's five-yearly estimates, 1975 through 2050, and taller means more people. Where a column is hatched the year has not happened yet. The strip under the columns is the UN's own confidence in each figure, palest where it is least sure; where it is blank the city was not on the list at all.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Tangshan through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Tangshan in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
China · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: China and its 2,082 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Shanghai). Tangshan 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, Tangshan covered 338 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 87 km² of it. That is 38 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 6 by 6 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 3.5 times its size, and its people are 3.2 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 China
Its share of China
Of every 1,000 people in China in 2025, 2 lived in Tangshan, which is 2.3 million people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in China; the coloured squares live in Tangshan. 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
- 211 Port Harcourt Nigeria2,341,445
- 212 Dammam Saudi Arabia2,335,647
- 213 Daegu South Korea2,334,446
- 214 Goiânia Brazil2,320,596
- 215 Tangshan2,286,763
- 216 Bursa Türkiye2,281,622
- 217 Manaus Brazil2,277,352
- 218 Lanzhou2,272,104
- 219 Vadodara India2,270,298
In China, 2025
- 178 Dalian2,796,248
- 185 Guiyang2,686,949
- 189 Changzhou2,649,836
- 193 Wuxi2,613,100
- 215 Tangshan2,286,763
- 218 Lanzhou2,272,104
- 234 Cixi2,177,489
- 248 Hohhot1,993,292
- 269 Putian1,871,858
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 Tangshan 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 Tangshan 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