How Big Is Gaza? Size, Population and Comparisons to US Cities

How big is Gaza? The Gaza Strip covers about 365 square kilometers, or 141 square miles, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS). It is about 41 km (25 miles) long and mostly between 6 and 12 km (4 to 7.5 miles) wide.

That is a territory about the size of the city of Detroit or Las Vegas, holding roughly 2.1 million people. The numbers below are given with their sources so you can check each comparison yourself.

How big is the Gaza Strip in square miles and kilometers?

Reference sources differ slightly because they measure the boundary in slightly different ways. All of them land in the same narrow range.

• Encyclopaedia Britannica: 365 square km (141 square miles) in its quick facts, and 363 square km (140 square miles) in the article text.
• PCBS: an area "not exceeding 365 km2" (press release of 12 May 2026).
• CIA World Factbook (2025 edition, now archived): 360 square km, about 139 square miles.
• Length: about 41 km (25 miles) from the northern edge to the Egyptian border. Britannica gives 25 miles (40 km), and the Factbook lists a 40 km coastline.
• Width: about 5 km at the narrowest point and up to 12 or 13 km at the widest, depending on the source.
• In Arabic (مساحة قطاع غزة): about 365 كيلومتراً مربعاً.

How big is Gaza compared to US cities?

Using the 141 square mile figure for Gaza and land areas from the US Census Bureau's 2024 Gazetteer files, the comparisons work out like this.

The CIA World Factbook's own shorthand was that Gaza is "slightly more than twice the size of Washington, D.C." The difference is how many people live there: about 2.1 million, in a territory that residents have very limited ability to leave.

• Las Vegas, Nevada: 141.9 square miles. Almost exactly the same size as Gaza.
• Detroit, Michigan: 138.7 square miles. Gaza is about 2 percent larger.
• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: 134.3 square miles. Gaza is about 5 percent larger.
• Omaha, Nebraska: 142.9 square miles. Gaza is about 1 percent smaller.
• Washington, D.C.: 61.1 square miles of land. Gaza is about 2.3 times the size.

Gaza Strip geography: where it is and what it looks like

The Gaza Strip is a narrow piece of land on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, just northeast of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. The archived CIA World Factbook lists 72 km of land boundaries: 59 km with Israel to the north and east, and 13 km with Egypt to the south.

The land is a flat to gently rolling coastal plain covered with sand and dunes. The highest point, Abu 'Awdah, is only 105 meters above sea level. Britannica describes winter temperatures averaging around 13 °C (the mid-50s °F), summers in the mid to upper 20s °C, and about 300 mm (12 inches) of rain a year.

PCBS divides the Strip into five governorates, from north to south: North Gaza, Gaza, Deir al-Balah, Khan Yunis and Rafah.

Palestine and Gaza: how the Strip fits into Palestine

People searching for "Palestine Gaza" are often asking how the two relate. The Gaza Strip is one of the two Palestinian territories. The other is the West Bank, which is about 15 times larger and does not touch Gaza; Israeli territory lies between them.

Gaza makes up about 6 percent of the combined land area of the two territories but holds about 38 percent of their population, based on PCBS figures for the end of 2025. Our guide to how big Palestine is covers the West Bank and the combined totals.

How many people live in Gaza?

PCBS estimated the population of the Gaza Strip at 2.13 million at the end of 2025. That is about 254,000 fewer people than its pre-war projections, a fall of 10.6 percent, which PCBS attributes to deaths, people leaving the territory and worsened living conditions since October 2023.

Spread evenly over 365 square km, 2.13 million people is about 5,800 people per square km, or roughly 15,100 per square mile. Before the war, Britannica put the density at 6,024 people per square km (2023).

People are not spread evenly. In its May 2026 release, PCBS reported that a military buffer zone established after the October 2025 ceasefire covered 53 percent of the Strip and was later expanded to about 64 percent, leaving the population in roughly 36 percent of the territory. On that basis PCBS calculated a density of more than 35,000 people per square km in the area where people are living.

Population of Gaza City and Deir al-Balah

Gaza City is the largest city in the Strip. PCBS projected the population of the Gaza City locality at 645,576 for mid-2021, and 713,488 for the wider Gaza governorate. Britannica gives 652,597 from the 2017 census. These are pre-war figures. Since October 2023 most residents have been displaced at least once, and no reliable current count for the city exists.

Deir al-Balah is a city in the middle of the Strip, about 14 km (9 miles) southwest of Gaza City in a straight line, and the center of the governorate of the same name. PCBS projected 83,192 residents for the city in mid-2021. The number of people sheltering in and around Deir al-Balah has been far higher during the war, because large numbers of displaced families moved to the central area.

How far is Gaza from Jerusalem?

Gaza City is about 79 km (49 miles) from Jerusalem in a straight line, measured between the two city centers. By road the distance is roughly 97 km (60 miles), based on OpenStreetMap routing.

The road distance is a map figure only. Movement between Gaza and Jerusalem is controlled by Israeli crossings and permits, and for almost all Palestinians in Gaza the journey is not possible. For scale, Gaza City is about 71 km (44 miles) from Tel Aviv in a straight line.

Why Gaza's size matters for aid

A territory the size of Las Vegas, with more than two million people and most of them living in a fraction of it, leaves very little room for shelter, clean water or sanitation. That is why needs in Gaza are counted in the hundreds of thousands of families, and why displacement and overcrowding shape almost every part of daily life.

Fight for Palestine funds emergency relief in Gaza through local partner teams: food parcels and hot meals, clean water, medical aid, shelter and winter items. You can read more about where we work and about humanitarian aid in Gaza, or give to the emergency appeal.