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Tawau, 
Malaysia
375,573 people lived in Tawau in 2025. It is the 1515th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 12th largest in Malaysia.
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 Tawau grew
For every 10 people in Tawau in 1975, there were 29.1 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 453,721 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2000 and 2005.
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
Tawau through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Tawau in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Malaysia · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 42 cities in Malaysia in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Kuala Lumpur. The ringed dot in colour is Tawau; 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, Tawau covered 68 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 10 km² of it. That is 28 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.4 times its size, and its people are 2.9 times as many.
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 Malaysia
Its share of Malaysia
Of every 100 people in Malaysia in 2025, 1 lived in Tawau, which is 375,573 people.
How to read this: shrink Malaysia to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Tawau; 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
- 1511 Xinghua China375,876
- 1512 Lalpur Bangladesh375,833
- 1513 Posadas Argentina375,741
- 1514 Viluppuram India375,616
- 1515 Tawau375,573
- 1516 Mariupol Ukraine375,504
- 1517 Liège Belgium375,138
- 1518 İskenderun Türkiye375,056
- 1519 Haimen China374,644
In Malaysia, 2025
- 1071 Bukit Mertajam517,326
- 1210 Kota Bharu460,445
- 1287 Seremban434,530
- 1412 Sandakan400,980
- 1515 Tawau375,573
- 1527 Kuantan373,353
- 1759 Kuala Terengganu326,615
- 1852 Sungai Petani310,566
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 Tawau 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 Tawau 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