Africa’s 50 Most Populous Cities in 2025
Africa’s urban growth is unlike anything happening elsewhere right now. Over 1.5 billion people live there, the median age is 18, and city populations expand at about 3.5% a year. Visual Capitalist ranked the 50 most populous African cities this year using UN World Urbanization Prospects 2025 data.
Nine of the fifty cities are Nigerian, more than any other country. Egypt and South Africa each contribute four. Cairo leads the whole ranking at 25.6 million, well ahead of Lagos at 12.8 million. The gap between those two alone is roughly the population of the Netherlands. Luanda and Kinshasa sit above 10 million, and Dar es Salaam, Addis Ababa, Nairobi, and Kampala all place in the top 15, which reflects how quickly East Africa has urbanized over the past two decades.
| Rank | Country | City | 2025 Population |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 🇪🇬 Egypt | Al-Qahirah (Cairo) | 25,566,000 |
| 2 | 🇳🇬 Nigeria | Lagos | 12,792,000 |
| 3 | 🇦🇴 Angola | Luanda | 11,370,000 |
| 4 | 🇨🇩 DR Congo | Kinshasa | 10,944,000 |
| 5 | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | Dar es Salaam | 7,795,000 |
| 6 | 🇪🇬 Egypt | Alexandria | 7,267,000 |
| 7 | 🇿🇦 South Africa | Johannesburg | 7,077,000 |
| 8 | 🇸🇩 Sudan | Khartoum | 6,809,000 |
| 9 | 🇪🇹 Ethiopia | Addis Ababa | 6,706,000 |
| 10 | 🇨🇮 Côte d’Ivoire | Abidjan | 6,622,000 |
| 11 | 🇰🇪 Kenya | Nairobi | 6,134,000 |
| 12 | 🇳🇬 Nigeria | Onitsha | 5,628,000 |
| 13 | 🇬🇭 Ghana | Accra | 5,593,000 |
| 14 | 🇨🇲 Cameroon | Yaoundé | 5,106,000 |
| 15 | 🇺🇬 Uganda | Kampala | 4,881,000 |
| 16 | 🇳🇬 Nigeria | Kano | 4,840,000 |
| 17 | 🇿🇦 South Africa | Cape Town | 4,509,000 |
| 18 | 🇲🇦 Morocco | Casablanca | 4,457,000 |
| 19 | 🇸🇴 Somalia | Mogadishu | 4,399,000 |
| 20 | 🇬🇭 Ghana | Kumasi | 4,298,000 |
| 21 | 🇲🇱 Mali | Bamako | 4,245,000 |
| 22 | 🇪🇬 Egypt | Luxor | 4,188,000 |
| 23 | 🇨🇲 Cameroon | Douala | 4,105,000 |
| 24 | 🇲🇬 Madagascar | Antananarivo | 3,916,000 |
| 25 | 🇸🇳 Senegal | Dakar | 3,852,000 |
| 26 | 🇳🇬 Nigeria | Owerri | 3,833,000 |
| 27 | 🇳🇬 Nigeria | Ibadan | 3,721,000 |
| 28 | 🇨🇬 Rep. of Congo | Brazzaville | 3,656,000 |
| 29 | 🇨🇩 DR Congo | Kasaï-Oriental | 3,606,000 |
| 30 | 🇿🇲 Zambia | Lusaka | 3,511,000 |
| 31 | 🇩🇿 Algeria | Algiers | 3,246,000 |
| 32 | 🇧🇫 Burkina Faso | Ouagadougou | 3,206,000 |
| 33 | 🇿🇦 South Africa | Durban | 3,178,000 |
| 34 | 🇲🇿 Mozambique | Maputo | 3,166,000 |
| 35 | 🇨🇩 DR Congo | Lubumbashi | 2,833,000 |
| 36 | 🇬🇳 Guinea | Conakry | 2,728,000 |
| 37 | 🇧🇯 Benin | Cotonou | 2,506,000 |
| 38 | 🇹🇳 Tunisia | Tunis | 2,473,000 |
| 39 | 🇹🇬 Togo | Lomé | 2,415,000 |
| 40 | 🇳🇬 Nigeria | Port Harcourt | 2,341,000 |
| 41 | 🇿🇼 Zimbabwe | Harare | 2,117,000 |
| 42 | 🇪🇬 Egypt | Banha | 2,089,000 |
| 43 | 🇲🇦 Morocco | Rabat | 2,069,000 |
| 44 | 🇸🇱 Sierra Leone | Freetown | 1,936,000 |
| 45 | 🇹🇩 Chad | N’Djaména | 1,935,000 |
| 46 | 🇨🇩 DR Congo | Beni | 1,924,000 |
| 47 | 🇳🇬 Nigeria | Kaduna | 1,890,000 |
| 48 | 🇱🇷 Liberia | Monrovia | 1,879,000 |
| 49 | 🇳🇬 Nigeria | Benin City | 1,845,000 |
| 50 | 🇿🇦 South Africa | Pretoria | 1,836,000 |
Separate from size is the question of who’s growing fastest. Kampala is at about 5.3% per year according to UN WUP 2025 projections, which is genuinely fast for a city already nearing 5 million. Abuja around 4.6%, Kinshasa 4.4%, Dar es Salaam and Addis Ababa both above 4%.
The UN projects 13 African cities in the global top 50 by 2050. Luanda alone is expected to add roughly 8.9 million more residents in that time, which is a staggering number for a single city. Dar es Salaam and Addis Ababa are both tracking toward 10 million. Nigeria, DR Congo, and Ethiopia figure among only seven countries the UN expects to collectively account for more than half of all new urban residents worldwide by then.
In 25 years this ranking will need a serious redraw.
