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Ya'an, 
China
328,287 people lived in Ya'an in 2025. It is the 1750th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 322nd largest in China.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Ya'an 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 Ya'an grew
Where Ya'an had 10 people in 1975, it had 45.6 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 278,609 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2010 and 2015.
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
Ya'an through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Ya'an in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
China · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 2,082 cities in China in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Shanghai. The ringed dot in colour is Ya'an; 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, Ya'an covered 40 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 4.9 km² of it. That is 15 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 4 by 4 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 4.1 times its size, and its people are 4.6 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
Fewer than 1 in every 1,000 people in China lived in Ya'an in 2025 — about 1 in 4,348.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 1746 Shiblanga Egypt328,820
- 1747 Abu Tig Egypt328,639
- 1748 Shizuoka Japan328,613
- 1749 Shangyu District328,545
- 1750 Ya'an328,287
- 1751 Tezpur India328,217
- 1752 Puri India328,196
- 1753 Balıkesir Türkiye328,080
- 1754 Tacna Peru327,582
In China, 2025
- 1732 Liaoyuan331,469
- 1738 Xuanwei330,467
- 1739 Dashiqiao330,302
- 1749 Shangyu District328,545
- 1750 Ya'an328,287
- 1755 Baoshan327,416
- 1757 Xiangtan326,965
- 1765 Jiaonan325,383
- 1768 Kaiping324,576
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 Ya'an 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 Ya'an 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