Population Statistics
Glasgow
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Glasgow City · Scotland

Glasgow population

626,410people · latest estimate

Photo: 瑞丽江的河水, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
By James Burfield, SEO consultant, Bath · Page updated · GeoNames · World Gazetteer 2005

Glasgow has a population of 626,410, making it the largest place in Glasgow City. In 2005 the World Gazetteer recorded 610,268, a rise of 2.6% since.

610,268
in 2005
+2.6%
since 2005
#1
of 2 in Glasgow City

The other populations of Glasgow

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

What you meanPopulationSource
The place itself
The populated settlement, roughly the built-up core.
626,410 GeoNames
The agglomeration
The continuous urban area, including places that have grown into it.
1,644,296 World Gazetteer (2005)
The place in 2005
The same settlement twenty years earlier.
610,268 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: Glasgow City population trends, 2001–2024.

Glasgow is one of the UK's 76 official cities, ranked 2 of 76 by population.

Glasgow in context

406 km
south-east to Birmingham, the nearest larger town
835,178
people live within 10 km
#3
largest of 6,358 UK places
Glasgow in the UK

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 meanPopulationSource
Glasgow locality
NRS census geography: the continuously built-up Glasgow
617,415Census 2022
Glasgow (GeoNames record)
the figure in this page's heading; boundary unstated
626,410GeoNames

The locality figure is Scotland's Census 2022, summed over the Scottish Postcode Directory's own postcodes for this locality; across all of Scotland that method lands within 601 people of the national census total. Where the two rows disagree, the census locality is the figure to quote.

Food and drink, from the register

CategoryCountPer 10,000
Takeaways (more per head than 93% of Scottish towns)1,06417.2
Restaurants and cafés2,04233.1
Pubs and bars3465.6
Hotels and B&Bs1031.7
Supermarkets and convenience1512.4

Registered food establishments in the Glasgow locality, from the Food Standards Agency register. Scotland runs the Food Hygiene Information Scheme (pass or improvement required) rather than England's 0–5 scores, which changes nothing here: these are counts of premises, not judgments of them.

Age profile

MeasureValue
Median age (exact; older than 1% of Scottish towns)36
Under 1514.5%
65 and over14.0%
85 and over1.6%

Scotland's Census 2022 publishes single year of age at output-area level, so this median is exact — the middle resident's actual age, with nothing interpolated. England's published tables stop at five-year bands, which is why English pages label their medians estimated and this one is not. Percentiles compare the 90 Scottish towns of 10,000+ residents with each other, never with England or Wales: their figures are a different census year, and a percentile that quietly mixed the two would be a lie with a percent sign.

Who owns the homes

Measure% of households
Owned, outright or with a mortgage (higher than 2% of Scottish towns)46.5%
  of which owned outright21.6%
Social rented35.0%
Private rented16.9%
Household has no car or van (higher than 99% of Scottish towns)43.8%
Household has two or more15.9%

Scotland's Census 2022, over the 291,926 occupied households of the locality. Shared ownership and shared equity count with mortgaged homes; every share is of households, not residents.

Getting to work

How working residents travelled (census day)Share
Worked mainly from home33.3%
Car or van (of those who travelled)56.9%
Public transport (of those who travelled)23.4%
On foot (of those who travelled)13.2%
Bicycle (of those who travelled)3.3%

Scotland's Census 2022, collected 20 March 2022: past the last legal restrictions, but with home working still far above the old normal, so these are census-day records and mode shares are of the 272,531 employed residents who travelled, never of everyone.

Deprivation

The middle postcode here sits in decile 3 of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, where decile 1 is the most deprived tenth of Scotland's data zones and 10 the least. 56% of the locality's postcodes sit in the most deprived three deciles, 19% in the least deprived three.

SIMD 2020, Scotland's own index — never comparable with England's IMD, and never compared here. Weighted by postcodes rather than people, because the postcode file carries no population, and said so for the same reason the postcode-district pages say it.

Care homes, as Scotland's regulator grades them

Care homes for older people in the locality, by their lowest current grade: 2 very good, 39 good, 7 adequate, 4 weak, plus 4 not yet graded.

The Care Inspectorate's six-point scale (excellent down to unsatisfactory), shown by each service's minimum current grade because that is the Inspectorate's own headline convention. Scotland's regulator and scale, never translated into the CQC's words.

Railway stations

Stations in the locality: Glasgow Central (25,293,930 entries and exits, ORR estimate), Glasgow Queen Street (14,950,752 entries and exits, ORR estimate), Partick (3,091,680 entries and exits, ORR estimate), Exhibition Centre (Glasgow) (1,772,544 entries and exits, ORR estimate), Charing Cross (Glasgow) (1,562,948 entries and exits, ORR estimate), Hyndland (1,389,628 entries and exits, ORR estimate) and 55 more.

Stations are the DfT's NaPTAN register located by coordinates; passenger figures are the Office of Rail and Road's estimates, and a station shown without one did not match the ORR table by name. Bus stops are not shown for Scottish towns: the national stop register's west-of-Scotland submission is incomplete enough that a count would mislead, and no figure beats a wrong one.

Common questions

What is the population of Glasgow?
The populated place itself holds 626,410 residents. The wider Glasgow City council area recorded 650,300 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
Glasgow City, year by year from ONS estimates

Nearby in Glasgow City

#PlacePopulation
1Carmunnock1,250

All 2 places in Glasgow City →