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Areka, 
Ethiopia
130,386 people lived in Areka in 2025. It is the 4681st largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 57th largest in Ethiopia.
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 Areka'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 Areka grew
Where Areka had 10 people in 1975, it had 18.6 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 393,588 people in 2050. On the UN's projection it passes 250,000 people between 2040 and 2045.
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
Areka through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Areka in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Ethiopia · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 259 cities in Ethiopia in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Addis Ababa. The ringed dot in colour is Areka; 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, Areka covered 13 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 1.4 km² of it. That is 11 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 3 by 3 metres. Since 2015, its built-up land has grown by 40%, and its people have grown by 28%.
How to read this: each pale square is the city's whole area, the strong square inside it the part that is built on; one scale for all three, so a bigger square is more land. Hatched is the UN's projection.
Of every 100 people in Ethiopia
Its share of Ethiopia
Of every 1,000 people in Ethiopia in 2025, 1 lived in Areka, which is 130,386 people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in Ethiopia; the coloured squares live in Areka. 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
- 4554 Chilanga Zambia133,860
- 4569 Rajoir Bangladesh133,428
- 4637 Alipur Pakistan131,848
- 4657 Kayanza Burundi131,192
- 4681 Areka130,386
- 4695 Sandila India130,012
- 4719 Domeez Iraq129,444
- 4771 Mtwara Tanzania128,086
- 4839 Rihab Yemen126,332
In Ethiopia, 2025
- 3823 Shufune158,225
- 3864 Debre Birhan156,788
- 3914 Sodo154,912
- 4306 Leku141,486
- 4681 Areka130,386
- 4902 Basha124,959
- 4936 Boditi123,992
- 5067 Yirga Cheffe121,109
- 5114 Chucko120,065
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 Areka 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 Areka 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