Black Rock City Census 2025 Population Report

Welcome

The Black Rock City Census is a collaborative research project that began in 2002. Its purpose is to better understand the participants who attend Black Rock City and how the event evolves over time.

Black Rock City remains the heart of Burning Man and serves as the annual gathering place for a much broader cultural movement that has developed over four decades. Millions of people have participated in Burning Man through Black Rock City, Regional Events, community gatherings, public art, civic initiatives, volunteer efforts, and countless participant-led projects around the world.

This report is intended to provide a representative snapshot of one important expression of that culture: the participants who attend Black Rock City. It should not be interpreted as a demographic profile of the broader Burning Man movement or the many ways people engage with its culture beyond the event itself. Visit Burning Man Project’s annual Dispatch report and stay tuned to the Journal and Burning Man social handles for inspiring stories about the cultural movement’s impact in the world.

Although the Black Rock City Census project is technically a survey rather than a literal census (where data is collected from every member of a population), our methodology allows us to produce estimates that are representative of the Black Rock City population rather than only the individuals who participate directly in our data collection efforts.

While BRC Census has been producing reports since 2002, it is hard to compare recent data with reports from earlier years (before 2013) because of important differences in methodology, from a convenience sample of self-selected Census takers on-playa to a weighted online survey conducted after the Man burns. The results in this report are estimates of the Black Rock City population. The true population values may differ from the presented estimates due to random variation in the sampling process. This report contains estimates from data collected in 2025 and, when possible, comparable estimates from 2013 through 2019 and 2022 through 2024.

The BRC Census project is made possible through the extensive collective efforts of volunteers, academic researchers, and the Burning Man Project. The Census team sincerely thanks everyone whose contributions went into the collection of the data and the creation of this report!