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Yinchuan, 
China
1,792,788 people lived in Yinchuan in 2025. It is the 277th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 42nd largest in China.
Like every city on this site, Yinchuan 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 Yinchuan grew
For every 10 people in Yinchuan in 1975, there were 73.5 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 2.0 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 2000 and 2005.
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
Yinchuan through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Yinchuan 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 Yinchuan; 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, Yinchuan covered 258 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 69 km² of it. That is 38 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 6 by 6 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 10 times its size, and its people are 7.4 times as many.
How to read this: the outer pale square stands for all the land the city covers, and the solid square inside it for the part with buildings, roads and the like on it. All three squares share a scale, so you can compare them by eye. A hatched one is a year the UN has projected.
Of every 100 people in China
Its share of China
Of every 1,000 people in China in 2025, 1 lived in Yinchuan, which is 1.8 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 Yinchuan's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 273 Pretoria South Africa1,836,166
- 274 Ranchi India1,819,944
- 275 Munich Germany1,815,022
- 276 Beirut Lebanon1,794,019
- 277 Yinchuan1,792,788
- 278 Xiamen City1,788,492
- 279 Handan1,777,172
- 280 Hamburg Germany1,759,377
- 281 Porto Alegre Brazil1,755,917
In China, 2025
- 218 Lanzhou2,272,104
- 234 Cixi2,177,489
- 248 Hohhot1,993,292
- 269 Putian1,871,858
- 277 Yinchuan1,792,788
- 278 Xiamen City1,788,492
- 279 Handan1,777,172
- 284 Luoyang1,727,744
- 291 Nantong1,684,417
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 Yinchuan 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 Yinchuan 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