Portswood population

14,831people · latest estimate

Photo: David Mainwood, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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

Portswood has a population of 14,831, making it the 2nd largest place in Southampton.

of 3 in Southampton

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

Portswood in context

3 km

south to Southampton, the nearest larger town

495,086

people live within 10 km

#888

largest of 6,358 UK places

851

food businesses in Southampton

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 Portswood sits in postcode district SO17.

Council tax

The area Band D council tax for Southampton, the billing authority covering Portswood, is £2,381 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 Portswood?

The populated place itself holds 14,831 residents. The wider Southampton council area recorded 259,424 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

Southampton, year by year from ONS estimates

Postcode district SO17

Wards, constituencies and the deprivation profile

Nearby in Southampton

#	Place	Population
1	Southampton	269,781
2	Woolston	13,852

All 3 places in Southampton →