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Balcad, 
Somalia
186,328 people lived in Balcad in 2025. It is the 3241st largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 12th largest in Somalia.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Balcad governs, so it may be far from the number the city publishes about itself. How the UN measures a city.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Balcad grew
For every 10 people in Balcad in 2010, there were 27 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 444,889 people in 2050. On the UN's projection it passes 250,000 people between 2030 and 2035. The UN first counts it as a city in 2010, when it passed 50,000 people.
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
Balcad through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Balcad in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Somalia · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 53 cities in Somalia in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Mogadishu. The ringed dot in colour is Balcad; 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, Balcad covered 8 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 1.0 km² of it. That is 5 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 2 by 2 metres.
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 1,000 people in Somalia in 2025, 9 lived in Balcad, which is 186,328 people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in Somalia; the coloured squares live in Balcad. 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
- 3217 Domariaganj India187,658
- 3224 Cafunfo Angola187,253
- 3232 Jayapura Indonesia186,856
- 3238 Bangkinang Indonesia186,431
- 3241 Balcad186,328
- 3247 Meja Road India186,137
- 3249 Naivasha Kenya185,944
- 3255 Ruwa Zimbabwe185,224
- 3258 Biak Kota Indonesia184,918
In Somalia, 2025
- 1915 Merca299,906
- 1992 Beledweyne291,630
- 2273 Jowhar257,210
- 2528 Bosaso232,410
- 3241 Balcad186,328
- 3615 Berbera167,119
- 4305 Buulo Mareer141,522
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 Balcad are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 2010 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 Balcad 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