Topics
Toronto, 
Canada
5,494,431 people lived in Toronto in 2025. It is the 74th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in Canada.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Toronto governs, so it may be far from the number the city publishes about itself. How the UN measures a city.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Toronto grew
Where Toronto had 10 people in 1975, it had 27.8 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 6.2 million people in 2050. It passed five million people between 2015 and 2020.
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
Toronto through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Toronto in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Canada · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Canada and its 56 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people. Toronto 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, Toronto covered 1,360 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 359 km² of it. That is 65 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 8 by 8 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.2 times its size, and its people are 2.8 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 Canada
Its share of Canada
Of every 100 people in Canada in 2025, 14 lived in Toronto, which is 5.5 million people.
How to read this: shrink Canada to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Toronto; 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
- 70 Yangon Myanmar5,618,303
- 71 Accra Ghana5,592,780
- 72 Madrid Spain5,583,601
- 73 Faisalabad Pakistan5,566,382
- 74 Toronto5,494,431
- 75 Mashhad Iran5,398,248
- 76 Dubai United Arab Emirates5,283,789
- 77 Xi'an China5,231,053
- 78 Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte - Colombo Sri Lanka5,223,838
In Canada, 2025
- 74 Toronto5,494,431
- 187 Montreal2,668,723
- 286 Vancouver1,707,865
- 431 Calgary1,197,110
- 524 Edmonton981,522
- 796 Winnipeg679,037
- 900 Ottawa605,121
- 1134 Quebec490,451
- 1226 Surrey454,230
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 Toronto 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 Toronto 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