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Ürümqi, 
China
3,755,144 people lived in Ürümqi in 2025. It is the 122nd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 21st largest in China.
Like every city on this site, Ürümqi 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 Ürümqi grew
For every 10 people in Ürümqi in 1975, there were 42.5 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 4.0 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 1975 and 1980.
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
Ürümqi through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Ürümqi in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
China · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: China and its 2,082 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Shanghai). Ürümqi 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, Ürümqi covered 303 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 90 km² of it. That is 24 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 3.2 times its size, and its people are 4.2 times as many.
How to read this: pale is the whole of the city's land; the stronger square inside it is what is actually built on. The three are drawn to the same scale, so a larger square really is more land, and hatching means the year is the UN's projection rather than a count.
Of every 100 people in China
Its share of China
Of every 1,000 people in China in 2025, 3 lived in Ürümqi, which is 3.8 million people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares stand for everyone in China, one square for every 1,000th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Ürümqi's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 118 Antananarivo Madagascar3,916,219
- 119 Varanasi India3,858,863
- 120 Dakar Senegal3,852,475
- 121 Owerri Nigeria3,833,343
- 122 Ürümqi3,755,144
- 123 Ibadan Nigeria3,720,721
- 124 Recife Brazil3,691,196
- 125 Chicago United States3,683,385
- 126 Brazzaville Republic of the Congo3,656,322
In China, 2025
- 96 Harbin4,376,259
- 106 Wenzhou4,158,195
- 112 Taiyuan4,005,816
- 113 Puning3,989,322
- 122 Ürümqi3,755,144
- 128 Qingdao3,616,657
- 137 Jinan3,472,980
- 138 Changsha3,457,508
- 140 Changchun3,349,934
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 Ürümqi 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 Ürümqi 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