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Bahir Dar, 
Ethiopia
498,735 people lived in Bahir Dar in 2025. It is the 1107th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 3rd 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 Bahir Dar'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 Bahir Dar grew
Count 10 people in Bahir Dar in 1975 and the same count gives 25.1 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 692,894 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 1985 and 1990.
projected (after 2025) · how sure the UN is: high moderate low
How to read this: one column every five years, 1975 to 2050; its height is the number of people. Hatched columns are the UN's projection. The thin strip beneath says how sure the UN is of each figure: the stronger the colour, the surer. A blank means the place was not on the UN's list of cities that year.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Bahir Dar through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Bahir Dar 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 Bahir Dar; 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, Bahir Dar covered 45 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 8.9 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 3.7 times its size, and its people are 2.5 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 Ethiopia
Its share of Ethiopia
Of every 1,000 people in Ethiopia in 2025, 4 lived in Bahir Dar, which is 498,735 people.
How to read this: shrink Ethiopia to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Bahir Dar; 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
- 1103 Lakhimpur India501,540
- 1104 Dairut Egypt501,258
- 1105 Ijebu-Ode Nigeria500,036
- 1106 Anshun China499,794
- 1107 Bahir Dar498,735
- 1108 Naberezhnye Chelny Russia498,625
- 1109 Hamedan Iran498,337
- 1110 General Santos Philippines498,098
- 1111 Vũng Tàu Vietnam498,010
In Ethiopia, 2025
- 59 Addis Ababa6,705,705
- 937 Adama584,854
- 1107 Bahir Dar498,735
- 1146 Dire Dawa483,674
- 1230 Shashamane452,945
- 1250 Hawassa444,909
- 1257 Bishoftu442,776
- 1327 Jijiga422,225
- 1448 Gonder392,767
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 Bahir Dar 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 Bahir Dar 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