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Yan'an, 
China
338,883 people lived in Yan'an in 2025. It is the 1687th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 308th largest in China.
The UN measures every city in the world the same way, by where the buildings are rather than where the boundary runs, so this figure and Yan'an's own can differ widely. What counts as a city here.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Yan'an grew
Count 10 people in Yan'an in 1990 and the same count gives 49.4 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 322,771 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2010 and 2015. The UN first counts it as a city in 1990, when it passed 50,000 people.
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
Yan'an through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Yan'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 Yan'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, Yan'an covered 35 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 5.4 km² of it. That is 16 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 4 by 4 metres. Since 2000, its built-up land has grown to 4.5 times its size, and its people are 2.5 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 China
Its share of China
Fewer than 1 in every 1,000 people in China lived in Yan'an in 2025 — about 1 in 4,167.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 1683 Bo'ai339,876
- 1684 Bhagalpur India339,560
- 1685 Montería Colombia339,380
- 1686 Çerkezköy Türkiye338,995
- 1687 Yan'an338,883
- 1688 Naogaon Bangladesh338,623
- 1689 Naga Philippines338,596
- 1690 Ikere-Ekiti Nigeria338,367
- 1691 Rubavu Rwanda337,963
In China, 2025
- 1671 Dujiangyan342,467
- 1673 Qingzhou342,044
- 1675 Neijiang341,371
- 1683 Bo'ai339,876
- 1687 Yan'an338,883
- 1694 Sihui337,299
- 1699 Shuozhou336,303
- 1700 Ningguo336,274
- 1702 Shouguang336,017
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 Yan'an are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 1990 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 Yan'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