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Cities · Madagascar · capital
Antananarivo, 
Madagascar
3,916,219 people lived in Antananarivo in 2025. It is the 118th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the largest in Madagascar, where it is the capital.
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 Antananarivo'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 Antananarivo grew
For every 10 people in Antananarivo in 1975, there were 135.6 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 6.0 million people in 2050. On the UN's projection it passes five million people between 2035 and 2040.
projected (after 2025) · how sure the UN is: high moderate low
How to read this: each column is one of the UN's five-yearly estimates, 1975 through 2050, and taller means more people. Where a column is hatched the year has not happened yet. The strip under the columns is the UN's own confidence in each figure, palest where it is least sure; where it is blank the city was not on the list at all.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Antananarivo through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Antananarivo in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Madagascar · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 24 cities in Madagascar in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there. The ringed dot in colour is Antananarivo; 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, Antananarivo covered 461 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 69 km² of it. That is 18 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 4 by 4 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 6.4 times its size, and its people are 13.6 times as many.
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 Madagascar
Its share of Madagascar
Of every 100 people in Madagascar in 2025, 12 lived in Antananarivo, which is 3.9 million people.
How to read this: 100 squares, one for every 100th person in Madagascar; the coloured squares live in Antananarivo. 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
- 114 Barcelona Spain3,982,704
- 115 Houston United States3,955,046
- 116 Monterrey Mexico3,938,015
- 117 Tashkent Uzbekistan3,935,793
- 118 Antananarivo3,916,219
- 119 Varanasi India3,858,863
- 120 Dakar Senegal3,852,475
- 121 Owerri Nigeria3,833,343
- 122 Ürümqi China3,755,144
In Madagascar, 2025
- 118 Antananarivo3,916,219
- 1838 Antsiramandroso312,434
- 2155 Ambano270,357
- 3543 Amparihimahitsy170,981
- 3817 Ambatolahy II158,588
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 Antananarivo 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 Antananarivo 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