City of Belfast · Northern Ireland

Belfast population

348,005people · latest estimate

Photo: Conor2k10, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

By James Burfield, SEO consultant, Bath · Page updated 18 September 2026 · GeoNames · World Gazetteer 2005

Belfast has a population of 348,005, making it the largest place in City of Belfast. In 2005 the World Gazetteer recorded 274,770, a rise of 26.7% since.

274,770

in 2005

+26.7%

since 2005

of 2 in City of Belfast

The other populations of Belfast

The same name covers more than one area, and each has its own figure.

What you mean	Population	Source
The place itself The populated settlement, roughly the built-up core.	348,005	GeoNames
The local authority The Belfast council area, which can take in surrounding towns and countryside.	352,390	ONS mid-year estimate (2024)
The agglomeration The continuous urban area, including places that have grown into it.	647,120	World Gazetteer (2005)
The place in 2005 The same settlement twenty years earlier.	274,770	World Gazetteer (2005)

Why these differ: which population figure is right? · compare with another place

The 2005 figure is from the World Gazetteer archive and may draw its boundary differently from the current source, so treat the change as indicative. Sources: method.

Year-by-year official estimates for the wider area: Belfast population trends, 2001–2024.

Belfast is one of the UK's 76 official cities, ranked 12 of 76 by population.

Belfast in context

176 km

north-east to Glasgow, the nearest larger town

511,705

people live within 10 km

#13

largest of 6,358 UK places

Distances are straight-line from the settlement's recorded coordinates. The 10 km figure sums the recorded places within that radius, so it describes how built-up the surroundings are rather than people per square kilometre.

The population, measured on a real boundary

What you mean	Population	Source
Belfast City settlement NISRA's settlement boundary: the built-up Belfast	291,386	Census 2021
Belfast (GeoNames record) the figure in this page's heading; boundary unstated	348,005	GeoNames

The census figure is NISRA's Census 2021 count of usual residents inside the settlement's development limit: a boundary drawn in 2014–15 holding 2021 people, so growth at the edges since then sits outside it. 126,925 households. Where the rows disagree, quote the census. Northern Ireland's other layers wait on data that is either licensed (postcodes) or published only at district level (crime), and those absences are deliberate.

Common questions

What is the population of Belfast?

The populated place itself holds 348,005 residents. The wider Belfast council area recorded 352,390 in 2024. Each figure describes a different boundary and all are correct; the meanings table on this page says which is which, because a population without its boundary is not an answer.

Go deeper

Population since 2001

Belfast, year by year from ONS estimates

Nearby in City of Belfast

#	Place	Population
1	Castlereagh	56,679

All 2 places in City of Belfast →