Lancashire · England
Preston population
313,332people · latest estimate
Preston has a population of 313,332, making it the largest place in Lancashire. The 2005 World Gazetteer recorded 190,687 for Preston, but drew the settlement's boundary differently, so the two are not directly comparable.
The other populations of Preston
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. |
313,332 | GeoNames |
| The place in 2005 The same settlement twenty years earlier. |
190,687 | World Gazetteer (2005) |
Why these differ: which population figure is right? · compare with another place
Year-by-year official estimates for the wider area: Preston population trends, 2001–2024.
Preston is one of the UK's 76 official cities, ranked 16 of 76 by population.
Preston in context
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 centre of Preston sits in postcode district PR1.
Council tax
The area Band D council tax for Preston, the billing authority covering Preston, is £2,576 for 2026–27.
From MHCLG's council tax statistics (Table 9): the area average including police, fire and parish precepts, so it is the council's figure rather than the town's, and your own band depends on your property's 1991 valuation.
Common questions
What is the population of Preston?
Go deeper
Nearby in Lancashire
| # | Place | Population |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Burnley | 149,422 |
| 2 | Fylde | 76,500 |
| 3 | Rossendale | 67,400 |
| 4 | Morecambe | 51,644 |