Population statistics for every country and place

Current population figures for 246 countries and 193,820 towns and cities worldwide, ranked from open official data — with deep coverage of the UK, Ireland, the US, Spain and Portugal, and a restored 2005 archive for the 20-year view.

Deciding where in Britain to live? The measured version of the best-places question puts real sale prices and real crime rates side by side on true town boundaries, with age structure, broadband and crime compared town by town.

The Spanish and Portuguese data also reads in its own language: población de España por comunidad y localidad, and população de Portugal por distrito e localidade. The questions the tables raise get answered in the articles.

What the data found

League · Best places to liveWhere cheap and quiet actually is62 towns sit below the national median on both house prices and recorded crime. FindingsWhy Skegness doesn't have England's worst crime problemThe recorded rate ranks 3rd, and the reasons say more about visitor towns than about danger. FindingsBritain's accidental twin townsBlackpool's closest statistical match is Tredegar, an iron town 228km away. FindingsThe largest towns with no railway station81,952 people in Gosport, and not one National Rail station. League · Care qualityWhere every care home rates Good or better15,504 CQC-rated GPs and care homes, counted on true town boundaries. County spotlight · this weekCentral Bedfordshire55 places ranked · the largest is Dunstable, 51,973 people.

Largest countries by population

All 246 countries, ranked →

United Kingdom, in depth

The UK gets the fullest treatment: 6,358 places ranked, all 76 official cities, the largest towns, a density map, and year-by-year ONS trends for every local authority since 2001.

The 2005 archive

This domain published the World Gazetteer from 2001 to 2013, and its 2005 edition — cited across Wikipedia — is restored here: 237 countries as they were twenty years ago, with a free download.