Lección sobre Nueva York y los puertos importantes

Does “población” mean population or town in Spanish?

Población looks just like the English word “population,” and it can mean that. But it has a second meaning English does not: a place — a town or small settlement. The clue is the words around it. With numbers or “the people,” it means population. With size or place words, like pequeña (“small”), it means a town. So una población pequeña is “a small town,” not “a small population.”

From the clip: ¿Vive usted en una ciudad o en una población pequeña? (“Do you live in a city or a small town?”). Here ciudad (“city”) is set against población, so población clearly means the place, not the head count.