Population within a radius

"How many people live within 10 km of here?" is a question behind many decisions: where to open a shop, a clinic or a gym, how many customers a delivery area can reach, how many residents a planned wind farm, quarry or festival will affect, or how big the catchment of a school or a hospital is. Official statistics answer it for municipalities and districts, but a circle around a point cuts across all of them, and an AI assistant can only guess. This tool does the arithmetic. Search a town or a postcode, click anywhere on the map or use your location, set the radius and the circle is drawn on the map. The panel shows the estimated number of residents inside it, the population density and the area of the circle, a table of how many people live at each distance from the centre (0–5, 5–10, 10–25 km and so on), and the largest towns in the circle. Drag the centre or the handle on the edge to compare places, download the numbers as CSV, or copy the share link so a colleague sees the same circle.

How to use it

1. Search a town, city or postcode, click the map, or press "Use my location" to place the centre.
2. Type the radius and choose kilometres or miles, press one of the quick buttons, or drag the round handle on the edge of the circle.
3. Read the estimated number of people in the circle, the density and the table by distance.
4. Download the numbers as CSV or copy the share link.

How accurate is it?

Where the numbers come from

The Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-POP) of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre spreads the population counts of each country's census over a grid, using satellite maps of where buildings stand. This tool uses the epoch 2025, the grid's estimate for the year 2025, at 30 arc-seconds, which is about 1 km at the equator and narrower east to west towards the poles. In Europe and North America the full 1 km grid is used; for the rest of the world the cells are added up to about 5 km to keep the download small.

How the circle is counted

Every grid cell counts with the share of its area that lies inside the circle. Cells well inside count in full, cells well outside not at all, and cells on the edge are split into 16 parts whose distance from the centre is measured on the WGS84 ellipsoid with GeographicLib. The circle itself is therefore exact; the uncertainty lies in the grid. For circles of 10 km and more the total is usually within a few per cent of what the census itself would give. The result is rounded to three significant figures, because more digits would suggest a precision the model does not have.

Small circles and coarse cells

Below about 3 km the error grows quickly: a single 1 km cell holds a whole block of flats or a whole village, and the grid cannot say on which side of the circle's edge the people live. Outside Europe and North America, where the cells are about 5 km, the same happens below about 15 km. Read small circles as an order of magnitude, not as a head count.

Good to know

Residents, not people present

The grid counts where people live, not where they work or travel. A business district or an airport can be full of people during the day and still show only a few thousand residents, and tourist areas swell far beyond their resident numbers in season.

The circle includes water and empty land

The density is the number of people divided by the whole area of the circle, including sea, lakes, forests and mountains. A coastal town therefore shows a lower density than its built-up area really has. Compare the table by distance to see where the people actually are.

An estimate for 2025

GHS-POP projects the latest censuses forward to 2025. Where a country's last census is old or new neighbourhoods have grown quickly, the numbers can be off by more than the usual few per cent. For official purposes, such as a planning application, use the statistics office's own figures.