Topics
Tokyo, 
Japan
Tōkyō
33,412,512 people lived in Tokyo in 2025. It is the 3rd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in Japan, where it is the capital.
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 Tokyo's own can differ widely. What counts as a city here.
In its own language: Tōkyō.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Tokyo grew
For every 10 people in Tokyo in 1975, there were 13.8 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 30.7 million 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
Tokyo through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Tokyo in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Japan · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 137 cities in Japan in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there. The ringed dot in colour is Tokyo; 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, Tokyo covered 5,148 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 1,521 km² of it. That is 46 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 7 by 7 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown by 43%, and its people have grown by 38%.
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 Japan
Its share of Japan
Of every 100 people in Japan in 2025, 27 lived in Tokyo, which is 33.4 million people.
How to read this: 100 squares, one for every 100th person in Japan; the coloured squares live in Tokyo. 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
- 1 Jakarta Indonesia41,913,860
- 2 Dhaka Bangladesh36,585,479
- 3 Tokyo33,412,512
- 4 New Delhi India30,222,405
- 5 Shanghai China29,558,908
- 6 Guangzhou China27,563,372
- 7 Cairo Egypt25,566,102
In Japan, 2025
- 3 Tokyo33,412,512
- 25 Osaka12,964,145
- 49 Nagoya7,146,160
- 226 Fukuoka2,225,078
- 252 Sapporo1,964,519
- 406 Sendai1,256,440
- 428 Kitakyushu1,206,731
- 435 Hiroshima1,185,788
- 484 Naha1,060,017
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 Tokyo 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 Tokyo 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