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Yangon, 
Myanmar
5,618,303 people lived in Yangon in 2025. It is the 70th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in Myanmar.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Yangon 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 Yangon grew
Where Yangon had 10 people in 1975, it had 26 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 6.1 million people in 2050. It passed five million people between 2010 and 2015.
projected (after 2025) · how sure the UN is: high moderate low
How to read this: each column is one of the UN's five-yearly estimates, 1975 through 2050, and taller means more people. Where a column is hatched the year has not happened yet. The strip under the columns is the UN's own confidence in each figure, palest where it is least sure; where it is blank the city was not on the list at all.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Yangon through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Yangon in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Myanmar · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 125 cities in Myanmar in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there. The ringed dot in colour is Yangon; 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, Yangon covered 511 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 110 km² of it. That is 20 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 4 by 4 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.5 times its size, and its people are 2.6 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 Myanmar
Its share of Myanmar
Of every 100 people in Myanmar in 2025, 10 lived in Yangon, which is 5.6 million people.
How to read this: 100 squares stand for everyone in Myanmar, one square for every 100th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Yangon's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 66 Kozhikode India6,123,872
- 67 Shenyang China5,702,638
- 68 Kabul Afghanistan5,635,737
- 69 Onitsha Nigeria5,627,706
- 70 Yangon5,618,303
- 71 Accra Ghana5,592,780
- 72 Madrid Spain5,583,601
- 73 Faisalabad Pakistan5,566,382
- 74 Toronto Canada5,494,431
In Myanmar, 2025
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 Yangon 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 Yangon 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