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Abua, 
Nigeria
258,314 people lived in Abua in 2025. It is the 2259th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 84th largest in Nigeria.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Abua governs, so it may be far from the number the city publishes about itself. How the UN measures a city.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Abua grew
Where Abua had 10 people in 1975, it had 33.7 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 474,021 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2020 and 2025.
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
Abua through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Abua in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Nigeria · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 457 cities in Nigeria in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Lagos. The ringed dot in colour is Abua; the grey dots are the rest. The outlines around them are neighbouring countries.
Area and built-up land · km²
How much land it covers
In 2025, Abua covered 15 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 1.5 km² of it. That is 6 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 2 by 2 metres. Since 2010, its built-up land has grown by 50%, and its people have grown by 49%.
How to read this: pale is the whole of the city's land; the stronger square inside it is what is actually built on. The three are drawn to the same scale, so a larger square really is more land, and hatching means the year is the UN's projection rather than a count.
Of every 100 people in Nigeria
Its share of Nigeria
Of every 1,000 people in Nigeria in 2025, 1 lived in Abua, which is 258,314 people.
How to read this: shrink Nigeria to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Abua; the grey ones are everybody else, in other cities, in towns and out in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 2252 Dundo Angola259,341
- 2253 Nawada India259,262
- 2256 Gillingham United Kingdom258,422
- 2257 New Orleans United States258,413
- 2259 Abua258,314
- 2260 Masaurhi India258,274
- 2262 Netanya Israel257,714
- 2263 Kherson Ukraine257,682
- 2265 Dinghai District China257,524
In Nigeria, 2025
- 2180 Agbor267,341
- 2218 Jalingo262,796
- 2219 Mubi262,651
- 2233 Agbara261,298
- 2259 Abua258,314
- 2270 Otukpo257,334
- 2278 Ogu256,345
- 2280 Abat256,126
- 2302 Hadejia252,778
How to read this: names are in order of size, the leading number being each city's rank among all 12,138 in 2025; the bars share a scale within a list. A jump in the ranks means a city under 300,000 people, which is not given a page here.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Abua 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 Abua 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