Morobe Province · Papua New Guinea
Lae population
76,255people · latest figure
Lae has a population of 76,255, making it the 2nd largest place we list in Papua New Guinea. It is in Morobe Province.
Lae holds 0.70% of Papua New Guinea's 10,947,848 people. Port Moresby, the largest place we list there, is 3.7 times its size. The World Gazetteer published 76,255 for Lae in 2005 and GeoNames still carries that same figure, so there is no measured change to report.
The 2005 figure comes from the World Gazetteer archive restored on this site. Why figures differ.
Nearby in size
| Place | Region | Population |
|---|---|---|
| Port Moresby | National Capital | 283,733 |
| Arawa | Bougainville | 40,266 |
| Mount Hagen | Western Highlands Province | 33,623 |
| Popondetta | Oro Province | 28,198 |
All places in Papua New Guinea →
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.