Population Statistics
HomeWorldVatican

Vatican: cities by population

By James Burfield, SEO consultant, Bath · Page updated · UN World Population Prospects

Vatican has a population of 506 (UN estimate, 2026), with Vatican City as its capital. The 1 largest of its 1 recorded towns and cities, ranked.

-27%
since 2000 (691)
+41%
projected by 2050 (714)
1151
people per km²
19501975200020252050 1k 1k
UN estimates to 2026; the dashed line is the medium-variant projection to 2050, a forecast rather than a measurement. Source: World Population Prospects 2024.
Full UN series, 1950 to 2050
YearPopulation
1950880
1975733
2000691
2005659
2010621
2015572
2020528
2025501
2026506
2030 projected528
2050 projected714

Medium variant. Figures from 2026 onward are projections, not measurements.

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.
Treat these figures with care. The settlements listed below sum to 829, against a national population of 506. Some overlap is normal where towns run together, but a gap this wide suggests the underlying figures for Vatican are unreliable, and we have not been able to verify them independently.

Largest cities in Vatican

#PlaceRegionPopulation
1Vatican City829

Twenty years earlier: Vatican in the 2005 World Gazetteer — population then 768.

Common questions

What is the population of Vatican?
Vatican has a population of 506, the UN World Population Prospects estimate for 2026. The UN's medium-variant projection for 2050 is 714 — a forecast, not a measurement.
What is the capital of Vatican?
Vatican City.

Go deeper

Vatican City
The largest place we record in Vatican: 829 people
Vatican in 2005
The World Gazetteer's archive edition: 768 then
All 246 countries
Every country and territory, ranked by population