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Urmia, 
Iran
698,050 people lived in Urmia in 2025. It is the 771st largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 13th largest in Iran.
Like every city on this site, Urmia is counted as a built-up area seen from above rather than as a city government's territory. Why that changes the number.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Urmia grew
Where Urmia had 10 people in 1975, it had 41.3 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 729,986 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 1980 and 1985.
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
Urmia through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Urmia in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Iran · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Iran and its 210 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Tehran). Urmia 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, Urmia covered 100 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 26 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 3.8 times its size, and its people are 4.1 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 Iran
Its share of Iran
Of every 1,000 people in Iran in 2025, 8 lived in Urmia, which is 698,050 people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares stand for everyone in Iran, one square for every 1,000th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Urmia's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 767 Deyang China700,386
- 768 Acapulco Mexico699,888
- 769 Seville Spain699,504
- 770 Krakow Poland699,015
- 771 Urmia698,050
- 772 Donghe China696,169
- 773 Hsinchu Taiwan695,677
- 774 Shahjahanpur India694,580
- 775 Kebkabiya Sudan694,415
In Iran, 2025
- 566 Shiraz914,496
- 610 Kavar857,280
- 629 Kermanshah837,230
- 644 Qom815,416
- 771 Urmia698,050
- 948 Rasht579,481
- 1043 Zahedan531,482
- 1073 Kerman517,216
- 1109 Hamedan498,337
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 Urmia 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 Urmia 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