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Yazd, 
Iran
485,381 people lived in Yazd in 2025. It is the 1141st largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 18th largest in Iran.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Yazd 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 Yazd grew
Where Yazd had 10 people in 1975, it had 89.7 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 540,022 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2000 and 2005.
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
Yazd through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Yazd in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Iran · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 210 cities in Iran in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Tehran. The ringed dot in colour is Yazd; 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, Yazd covered 118 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 36 km² of it. That is 74 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 9 by 9 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 5.6 times its size, and its people are 9 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 Iran
Its share of Iran
Of every 1,000 people in Iran in 2025, 5 lived in Yazd, which is 485,381 people.
How to read this: shrink Iran to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Yazd; the grey ones are everybody else, in other cities, in towns and out in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 1137 Portsmouth United Kingdom488,385
- 1138 Bazarati India487,581
- 1139 Dimapur India487,500
- 1140 Timerein Sudan486,586
- 1141 Yazd485,381
- 1142 Enshi China485,222
- 1143 Haifa Israel484,770
- 1144 Cooch Behar India484,313
- 1145 Kagoshima Japan484,164
In Iran, 2025
- 948 Rasht579,481
- 1043 Zahedan531,482
- 1073 Kerman517,216
- 1109 Hamedan498,337
- 1141 Yazd485,381
- 1274 Ardabil437,757
- 1359 Sareyn413,772
- 1467 Pishva388,154
- 1492 Bandar Abbas381,008
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 Yazd 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 Yazd 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