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Zamboanga City, 
Philippines
513,813 people lived in Zamboanga City in 2025. It is the 1081st largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 11th largest in the Philippines.
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 Zamboanga City'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 Zamboanga City grew
Count 10 people in Zamboanga City in 1975 and the same count gives 38.4 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 505,965 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 1975 and 1980.
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
Zamboanga City through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Zamboanga City in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Philippines · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 114 cities in the Philippines in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Manila. The ringed dot in colour is Zamboanga City; 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, Zamboanga City covered 82 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 12 km² of it. That is 23 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1980, its built-up land has grown to 9.7 times its size, and its people are 2 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 the Philippines
Its share of the Philippines
Of every 1,000 people in the Philippines in 2025, 4 lived in Zamboanga City, which is 513,813 people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in the Philippines; the coloured squares live in Zamboanga City. The grey rest live in other cities, in towns or in the countryside.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 1077 Lobito Angola516,153
- 1078 Zhuji China515,549
- 1079 Chenzhou China514,905
- 1080 Saurimo Angola514,728
- 1081 Zamboanga City513,813
- 1082 Gorontalo Indonesia513,078
- 1083 Tongliao China512,445
- 1084 Mau India512,415
- 1085 Tianshui China511,831
In the Philippines, 2025
- 750 Iloilo City717,038
- 828 Bacolod655,836
- 880 Lipa614,898
- 971 Baguio565,522
- 1081 Zamboanga City513,813
- 1110 General Santos498,098
- 1357 Batangas City415,103
- 1676 Iligan341,172
- 1689 Naga338,596
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 Zamboanga City 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 Zamboanga City 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