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Aba, 
Nigeria
1,428,069 people lived in Aba in 2025. It is the 355th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 11th largest in Nigeria.
This is the UN's built-up area, drawn from satellite pictures and census maps rather than from the city limits, and the two can be a long way apart. The rule behind it.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Aba grew
Count 10 people in Aba in 1975 and the same count gives 40.3 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 2.1 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 2005 and 2010.
projected (after 2025) · how sure the UN is: high moderate low
How to read this: read it left to right, 1975 to 2050, one column every five years, the height being people. Hatching marks the projected years. Below, a strip of the UN's confidence: strong colour where the census maps are recent and detailed, pale where they are not, blank where the place was not counted as a city.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Aba through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Aba in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Nigeria · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Nigeria and its 457 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Lagos). Aba is ringed, in colour; the other cities are grey. Neighbouring countries are outlines.
Area and built-up land · km²
How much land it covers
In 2025, Aba covered 189 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 53 km² of it. That is 37 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 6 by 6 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 2.1 times its size, and its people are 4 times as many.
How to read this: the outer pale square stands for all the land the city covers, and the solid square inside it for the part with buildings, roads and the like on it. All three squares share a scale, so you can compare them by eye. A hatched one is a year the UN has projected.
Of every 100 people in Nigeria
Its share of Nigeria
Of every 1,000 people in Nigeria in 2025, 6 lived in Aba, which is 1.4 million people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in Nigeria; the coloured squares live in Aba. The grey rest live in other cities, in towns or in the countryside.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 351 Gwangju South Korea1,441,495
- 352 Dushanbe Tajikistan1,440,787
- 353 Valencia Venezuela1,435,894
- 354 Medina Saudi Arabia1,432,287
- 355 Aba1,428,069
- 356 Al Zaqaziq Egypt1,416,734
- 357 Asyut Egypt1,406,963
- 358 Brussels Belgium1,406,499
- 359 Seattle United States1,403,495
In Nigeria, 2025
- 266 Kaduna1,890,448
- 271 Benin City1,845,432
- 305 Warri1,607,702
- 316 Uyo1,567,115
- 355 Aba1,428,069
- 367 Aboh1,374,320
- 368 Abuja1,373,722
- 399 Ilorin1,282,219
- 420 Maiduguri1,225,505
How to read this: the figure in front of a name is where that city stands among the 12,138 cities the UN counted in 2025, and each bar is its people, on one scale per list. Numbers are missing where a city has fewer than 300,000 people and so has no page of its own.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Aba are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 1975 to 2025, then projection to 2050. Projected years are drawn hatched, and the UN publishes no range of uncertainty for a city. What a city means here, how the UN measures one, and why that number can differ from the one Aba publishes about itself: how the figures here are put together.
Sources: UN WUP 2025 · Natural Earth · flag-icons. Every source, its licence and how to cite it →
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries