Sibu has a population of 198,239, making it the 50th largest place we list in Malaysia. It is in Sarawak.
Sibu holds 0.54% of Malaysia's 36,385,115 people. Kuala Lumpur, the largest place we list there, is 7.3 times its size. Twenty years earlier the World Gazetteer recorded 198,239, almost unchanged.
The 2005 figure comes from the World Gazetteer archive restored on this site. The two sources may draw the settlement's boundary differently, so treat the change as indicative rather than exact. Why figures differ.
Nearby in size
| Place | Region | Population |
|---|---|---|
| Bandar Utama | Kuala Lumpur | 200,000 |
| Bukit Jalil | Kuala Lumpur | 200,000 |
| Rawang | Selangor | 199,095 |
Figures are the latest available in GeoNames (CC BY 4.0), which draws on national censuses of varying dates — treat them as recent, not same-year. Country totals are UN World Population Prospects 2024 (medium variant) where the UN lists the country separately; the handful it reports under a parent state keep a GeoNames figure and are marked as such. Sources & method.