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Baidoa, 
Somalia
420,281 people lived in Baidoa in 2025. It is the 1339th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 5th largest in Somalia.
Like every city on this site, Baidoa is counted as a built-up area seen from above rather than as a city government's territory. Why that changes the number.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Baidoa grew
Where Baidoa had 10 people in 1975, it had 24.3 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 560,586 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 1980 and 1985.
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
Baidoa through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Baidoa in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Somalia · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Somalia and its 53 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Mogadishu). Baidoa is ringed, in colour; the other cities are grey. Neighbouring countries are outlines.
Area and built-up land · km²
How much land it covers
In 2025, Baidoa covered 30 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 5.9 km² of it. That is 14 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 4 by 4 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 5.4 times its size, and its people are 2.4 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 Somalia
Its share of Somalia
Of every 100 people in Somalia in 2025, 2 lived in Baidoa, which is 420,281 people.
How to read this: shrink Somalia to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Baidoa; 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
- 1335 Kamoke Pakistan421,152
- 1336 Navsari India421,121
- 1337 Giridih India420,525
- 1338 Probolinggo Indonesia420,356
- 1339 Baidoa420,281
- 1340 Hosur India420,017
- 1341 Basirhat India419,703
- 1342 Mykolaiv Ukraine419,484
- 1343 Ikot Ekpene Nigeria418,650
In Somalia, 2025
- 95 Mogadishu4,399,430
- 310 Hargeisa1,593,542
- 1207 Kismayo461,302
- 1310 Burao427,013
- 1339 Baidoa420,281
- 1571 Borama363,753
- 1823 Wanlaweyn314,824
- 1915 Merca299,906
- 1992 Beledweyne291,630
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 Baidoa 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 Baidoa 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