In 2025, 33.2% of Bangladeshis lived in urban areas, up from 19.9% in 1990, according to United Nations urbanisation estimates published through the World Bank. That is about 58.4 million people, compared with 22.2 million in 1990.
22.2 million → 58.4 million
Estimated urban population of Bangladesh, 1990 and 2025.
The urban population has grown about 2.6 times in 35 years, faster than the total population, which is why the urban share has risen by about 13 percentage points. The share rose from 23.3% in 2000 to 27.7% in 2010 and 31.1% in 2020, and by 0.5 to 0.6 points a year since 2023. Even so, around two in three Bangladeshis (66.8%) still live outside urban areas.
For policy, the number matters as much as the share: every year adds well over a million urban residents who need housing, safe water, sanitation, transport and jobs. Other DEEPLAB insights show how far services lag: more than half of urban residents lived in slum conditions in 2022.
One caveat: “urban” is defined by each country’s statistics office, so Bangladesh’s share is not strictly comparable with other countries, and the figures are modelled UN estimates rather than a census count.
Source: United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects, via World Bank WDI (SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS and SP.URB.TOTL).