Population Radius Tool: How Many People Live Within X km

The Population tool counts the people living inside a circle you draw on the map. Click the center, click the edge, and TrueSize shows the radius and the number of people inside, using the GHS-POP 2025 population grid. It also gives a live count while you draw your own shape.

A population circle with its people count.

How to count the people in a circle

1. Open the Tools tab of the ribbon.
2. Click Population ("Count people in a circle").
3. Click the center of the circle on the map, then click its edge. The hint at the top reads "Click the centre of the circle, then click its edge."
4. The panel shows the Radius, the people count (for example "about 1.2 million") and the density per km².
5. Draw more circles to compare places. Use the undo button or Clear all to remove circles, or Exit population tool when you are finished.

While the data loads you see "Counting people…". If a circle covers an area with no population in the data, the panel says no one lives there.

Live count while drawing a shape

You can also count the people inside any shape.

1. Open Tools and click Draw.
2. Click on the map to add points. The drawing bar shows a Population line that updates as the shape changes.
3. Finish the shape when you have at least three points.

A drawn shape with a live population count.

See draw and edit shapes for the full drawing controls.

About the data

Population comes from GHS-POP 2025, the Global Human Settlement population grid by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, licensed CC BY 4.0. The map shows the attribution under every result. The grid divides the world into small cells and estimates how many people live in each, so a circle count adds up the cells inside.

Good to know

• The result is an estimate, shown as "about" a number. Small circles in sparse areas are less precise than large circles.
• A circle is drawn on the sphere, so its radius is a true ground distance wherever you put it.
• To get the total for whole countries or loaded regions, use Stats in the Tools tab instead.
• The circle tool is not kept in share links.

Examples to try

• Draw a circle with a radius of about 4,000 km centered near Yuxi in southern China: it holds about 4.4 billion people (GHS-POP 2025, measured in TrueSize), more than half of humanity. The half of humanity circle page explains the idea.
• Compare a 50 km circle around two big cities.
• Count the people inside the blast rings of a weapon with the Nukes tool.

Where it works

The Population tool works on the web and in the TrueSize mobile app.

Related

• Distance and bearing
• Nuclear blast radius map
• Draw and edit shapes
• Move and compare regions

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