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As Samawah, 
Iraq
393,865 people lived in As Samawah in 2025. It is the 1443rd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 19th largest in Iraq.
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 As Samawah grew
Count 10 people in As Samawah in 1975 and the same count gives 72.9 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 656,055 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 2010 and 2015.
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
As Samawah through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in As Samawah 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 As Samawah; 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, As Samawah covered 45 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 10 km² of it. That is 26 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 5 by 5 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 4.9 times its size, and its people are 7.3 times as many.
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 Iraq
Its share of Iraq
Of every 1,000 people in Iraq in 2025, 8 lived in As Samawah, which is 393,865 people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in Iraq; the coloured squares live in As Samawah. 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
- 1439 Pegu Myanmar394,446
- 1440 Danzhou City China394,343
- 1441 Mahesana India394,304
- 1442 Bamenda Cameroon394,155
- 1443 As Samawah393,865
- 1444 Ezhou China393,658
- 1445 Morena India393,553
- 1446 Kadapa India393,513
- 1447 Santiago del Estero Argentina393,257
In Iraq, 2025
- 836 Amarah645,612
- 960 Jafar Muhammad Ali570,883
- 1132 Al-Kut491,247
- 1240 Ramadi449,183
- 1443 As Samawah393,865
- 1586 Fallujah359,695
- 1870 Al-Shatrah307,652
- 2376 Shorsh245,565
- 2413 Gayara242,690
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 As Samawah 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 As Samawah 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