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Beira, 
Mozambique
608,097 people lived in Beira in 2025. It is the 892nd largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 3rd largest in Mozambique.
Like every city on this site, Beira 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 Beira grew
For every 10 people in Beira in 1975, there were 49.8 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 938,178 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: 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
Beira through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Beira in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Mozambique · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: every dot is one of the 48 cities in Mozambique in 2025, and a dot's area is how many people live there, the biggest being Maputo. The ringed dot in colour is Beira; 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, Beira covered 114 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 25 km² of it. That is 41 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 6 by 6 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 5.8 times its size, and its people are 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 Mozambique
Its share of Mozambique
Of every 100 people in Mozambique in 2025, 2 lived in Beira, which is 608,097 people.
How to read this: shrink Mozambique to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Beira; 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
- 888 Cipanas Indonesia610,177
- 889 Xingning China609,923
- 890 Kasur Pakistan609,468
- 891 Sfax Tunisia608,293
- 892 Beira608,097
- 893 Chapainawabganj Bangladesh607,924
- 894 Zhaoqing China607,624
- 895 Bihar Sharif India607,401
- 896 Zhangjiakou China606,124
In Mozambique, 2025
- 154 Maputo3,166,328
- 584 Nampula885,780
- 892 Beira608,097
- 1228 Chimoio453,521
- 1271 Quelimane438,554
- 1334 Tete421,174
- 1975 Lichinga294,317
- 2122 Nacala273,732
- 2232 Pemba261,380
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 Beira 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 Beira 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