Topics
Tripoli, 
Libya
Ţarābulus
1,239,823 people lived in Tripoli in 2025. It is the 411th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in Libya, where it is the capital.
Like every city on this site, Tripoli is counted as a built-up area seen from above rather than as a city government's territory. Why that changes the number.
In its own language: Ţarābulus.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Tripoli grew
Count 10 people in Tripoli in 1975 and the same count gives 24.2 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.5 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 2005 and 2010.
projected (after 2025) · how sure the UN is: high moderate low
How to read this: one column every five years, 1975 to 2050; its height is the number of people. Hatched columns are the UN's projection. The thin strip beneath says how sure the UN is of each figure: the stronger the colour, the surer. A blank means the place was not on the UN's list of cities that year.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Tripoli through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Tripoli in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Libya · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Libya and its 14 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people. Tripoli 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, Tripoli covered 414 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 110 km² of it. That is 88 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 9 by 9 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.8 times its size, and its people are 2.4 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 Libya
Its share of Libya
Of every 100 people in Libya in 2025, 17 lived in Tripoli, which is 1.2 million people.
How to read this: shrink Libya to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Tripoli; 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
- 407 Bujumbura Burundi1,246,960
- 408 Tiruppur India1,242,837
- 409 Sylhet Bangladesh1,242,548
- 410 Montevideo Uruguay1,240,244
- 411 Tripoli1,239,823
- 412 Gyanpur India1,237,249
- 413 Amsterdam Netherlands1,235,985
- 414 Zhangzhou China1,232,911
- 415 Kota India1,232,364
In Libya, 2025
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 Tripoli 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 Tripoli 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