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Al Mushahidah, 
Iraq
813,506 people lived in Al Mushahidah in 2025. It is the 648th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 14th largest in Iraq.
The UN measures every city in the world the same way, by where the buildings are rather than where the boundary runs, so this figure and Al Mushahidah's own can differ widely. What counts as a city here.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Al Mushahidah grew
Count 10 people in Al Mushahidah in 1975 and the same count gives 37.8 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 1.3 million people in 2050. On the UN's projection it passes a million people between 2030 and 2035.
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
Al Mushahidah through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Al Mushahidah in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Iraq · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 88 cities in Iraq in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Baghdad. The ringed dot in colour is Al Mushahidah; 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, Al Mushahidah covered 234 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 5.4 km² of it. That is 7 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 3 by 3 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 4.2 times its size, and its people are 3.8 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 Iraq
Its share of Iraq
Of every 100 people in Iraq in 2025, 2 lived in Al Mushahidah, which is 813,506 people.
How to read this: 100 squares, one for every 100th person in Iraq; the coloured squares live in Al Mushahidah. 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
- 644 Qom Iran815,416
- 645 Zakho814,526
- 646 Munger India814,325
- 647 Nasiriyah813,799
- 648 Al Mushahidah813,506
- 649 Mit Ghamr Egypt812,947
- 650 Sukkur Pakistan812,885
- 651 Barquisimeto Venezuela812,384
- 652 Quzhou China811,735
In Iraq, 2025
- 569 Sulaymaniyah907,815
- 577 Ad Diwaniyah894,478
- 645 Zakho814,526
- 647 Nasiriyah813,799
- 648 Al Mushahidah813,506
- 836 Amarah645,612
- 960 Jafar Muhammad Ali570,883
- 1132 Al-Kut491,247
- 1240 Ramadi449,183
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 Al Mushahidah 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 Al Mushahidah 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