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Zhanaozen, 
Kazakhstan
171,827 people lived in Zhanaozen in 2025. It is the 3531st largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 17th largest in Kazakhstan.
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 Zhanaozen'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 Zhanaozen grew
Where Zhanaozen had 10 people in 2005, it had 30.6 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 380,083 people in 2050. On the UN's projection it passes 250,000 people between 2035 and 2040. The UN first counts it as a city in 2005, when it passed 50,000 people.
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
Zhanaozen through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Zhanaozen in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Kazakhstan · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 34 cities in Kazakhstan in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Almaty. The ringed dot in colour is Zhanaozen; 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, Zhanaozen covered 41 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 12 km² of it. That is 70 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 8 by 8 metres. Since 2005, its built-up land has grown to 2.1 times its size, and its people are 3.1 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 Kazakhstan
Its share of Kazakhstan
Of every 1,000 people in Kazakhstan in 2025, 8 lived in Zhanaozen, which is 171,827 people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares stand for everyone in Kazakhstan, one square for every 1,000th person. Count the coloured ones and you have Zhanaozen's share; the grey remainder live somewhere else in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 3495 Ebolowa Cameroon173,565
- 3513 Gujar Khan Pakistan172,682
- 3525 Luau Angola172,177
- 3528 Anlong Veng Cambodia172,053
- 3531 Zhanaozen171,827
- 3538 Beanibazar Bangladesh171,417
- 3543 Amparihimahitsy Madagascar170,981
- 3547 Nampo North Korea170,683
- 3560 Shahrasti Bangladesh169,908
In Kazakhstan, 2025
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 Zhanaozen are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 2005 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 Zhanaozen 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