В городе живёт миллион человек.

Because after в you use different cases depending on the meaning:

• в город = into the city → motion/direction
• в городе = in the city → location

Here the sentence is about where people live, so it uses the Prepositional case: город → городе.

So:

• Я еду в город. = I’m going to the city.
• Я живу в городе. = I live in the city.

Городе is the Prepositional singular form of город.

The pattern is:

• nominative: город
• prepositional: в городе

This is a very common pattern for masculine nouns:

• в доме
• в парке
• в музее
• в городе

This is one of the most common learner questions.

Grammatically, the subject here is миллион (a million), which is singular. So the verb is usually singular too:

• Миллион человек живёт...

Russian often treats quantity expressions this way:

• Сто человек пришло.
• Тысяча студентов учится...
• Миллион человек живёт...

Even though the meaning involves many people, the grammar often agrees with the quantity word (миллион, тысяча, etc.), not with the people themselves.

In everyday Russian, you may also sometimes hear plural agreement in some contexts, especially when speakers focus more on the people than the number. But for learners, живёт here is normal and safe.

After numbers and large quantity words, Russian usually uses человек, not люди/людей, when simply counting people.

So Russian normally says:

• два человека
• пять человек
• сто человек
• миллион человек

The word люди means people in a general sense, but it is not the usual word after numerals.

So:

• Много людей = many people
• Миллион человек = a million people

Here человек is in the genitive plural after миллион.

This is tricky because the form looks like the singular dictionary form, but in this construction it functions as genitive plural.

Compare:

• singular: человек
• genitive plural: человек

That is why the phrase is:

• миллион человек
• not миллион человека
• not миллион люди

This is an irregular noun, so it is worth memorizing as a chunk:

• два человека
• пять человек
• миллион человек

Russian usually does not use a present-tense equivalent of there is / there are the way English does.

English says:

• There are a million people in the city.

Russian often just says:

• В городе живёт миллион человек.

Or in other cases:

• В городе есть парк. = There is a park in the city.

Here Russian uses живёт (lives) rather than a separate there are structure, because the idea is specifically about people living in the city.

So Russian is more direct here: In the city lives a million people.

Russian word order is flexible. The sentence starts with В городе to set the scene first: in the city.

This is very natural in Russian.

You could also say:

• Миллион человек живёт в городе.

That is grammatically possible too, but it may sound like the focus is more on a million people.

Very roughly:

• В городе живёт миллион человек. → focus on the place / giving information about the city
• Миллион человек живёт в городе. → focus on the number of people

Both are understandable, but the original sentence is very natural.

The letter ё shows both pronunciation and stress.

• живёт is pronounced roughly zhivYOT
• the stress is on ё

In many printed texts, Russian often writes е instead of ё, so you may see:

• живет

But it is still understood as живёт.

For learners, it is very helpful to remember that ё is always stressed.

Живёт is:

• 3rd person singular
• present tense
• from the verb жить = to live

Conjugation of жить:

• я живу
• ты живёшь
• он / она живёт
• мы живём
• вы живёте
• они живут

Here it is singular because of миллион, as explained above.

You may hear plural agreement in some real-life speech, but for a learner, живёт is the better choice here.

Why?

Because the grammatical head of the subject is миллион, which is singular:

• миллион живёт

So the standard learner-friendly version is:

• В городе живёт миллион человек.

Using живут is less neutral here and can sound like agreement by meaning rather than by grammar. It is better to learn the singular version first.

It can mean either, depending on context.

Russian has no articles, so в городе can mean:

• in the city
• in town

The exact English translation depends on the situation.

For example:

• Я живу в городе. could mean I live in the city or I live in town.

So the Russian phrase itself is broader than one single English wording.

Russian does not have articles.

So English distinctions like:

• a city
• the city
• a million people
• the million people

are not marked with separate words in Russian.

Russian relies on context and word order instead.

That is why:

• В городе живёт миллион человек

contains no direct equivalent of the or a.

The verb жить usually suggests living/residing, not just being physically present at the moment.

So the sentence normally means the city has a population of a million people, or that a million people live there.

If you wanted to say people are temporarily staying somewhere, Russian would often use a different verb or a different phrasing.

So this sentence is best understood as a statement about residence/population, not a temporary situation.