World cities with population and coordinates (Natural Earth)

What does this dataset do?

This workbook lists 7,342 populated places from Natural Earth's 1:10m Populated Places dataset, sorted from the largest pop_max estimate to the smallest. Each place has its name, country, state or province where the source gives one, latitude and longitude, and Natural Earth's population estimates. Formulas add a rank, hemisphere flags and population bars.

Two more tabs summarize the list: Capitals gives the Admin-0 capitals with their coordinates, and By country and By region total the places by country or territory and by World Bank region. Each country is joined to its World Bank region and income group by ISO3 code.

The population figures are estimates, not census counts. Natural Earth derives most of them from LandScan and gives a minimum and maximum for each place, from sources of different years. Read the About tab before you rank places or compare populations.

What’s inside

• 7,342 populated places with name, country, ISO3, coordinates and feature class
• pop_max and pop_min estimates from Natural Earth, sorted by pop_max, with a RANK formula
• 202 national capitals on their own tab with population bars
• Totals by country or territory (225 entries) and by World Bank region, with formulas
• World Bank region and income group joined by ISO3; 7,258 places matched

Which tabs does the workbook have?

What formulas does this dataset use?

This dataset holds 31,490 formulas in 151,576 cells across 6 tabs, so 21% of its cells calculate. They use 12 distinct functions; the longest formula is 105 characters and 1,066 of them read from another tab.

Counted from the workbook itself. Only functions that Excel, LibreOffice Calc, Google Sheets and Apple Numbers evaluate the same way are used, so the formulas survive every download format.

How do you use it?

1. Filter the Cities tab by country (ISO3) or by World Bank region with the header drop-downs.
2. Read the pop_min and pop_max columns together, since the two estimates show the range the source gives.
3. Use the Capitals tab to list national capitals with their coordinates.
4. Use the By country tab to see how many places each country has and which place is largest.
5. Credit Natural Earth as shown on the About tab when you publish a map or table.

What do the columns and units mean?

Where does the data come from?

Natural Earth 1:10m Populated Places (simple), licensed Public domain (Natural Earth); region and income group from the World Bank, CC BY 4.0. Retrieved 9 Oct 2026.

Cite as: Made with Natural Earth. Free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com. Populated places, ne_10m_populated_places_simple, Natural Earth version 5.2.0-pre (repository master branch), retrieved 2026-10-09. World Bank country list (region, income group) retrieved 2026-10-08, CC BY 4.0.

Natural Earth data file ne_10m_populated_places_simple.geojson from nvkelso/natural-earth-vector; VERSION file reads 5.2.0-pre. Population fields are Natural Earth estimates, not census counts. Joined to World Bank regions by ISO3 (two codes aliased: KOS to XKX, PSX to PSE); unmatched places keep blank region cells. Values are unmodified; formulas add rank, hemisphere, bars and totals.

What is it good for?

• Sizing city labels on a map by population
• Listing the largest places in a region or income group
• Finding the national capitals with coordinates for a map or a trip plan
• Joining city coordinates to other World Bank data by country code

Questions about this sheet