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Cities · Democratic Republic of the Congo
Beni, 
Democratic Republic of the Congo
1,923,700 people lived in Beni in 2025. It is the 258th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 4th largest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
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 Beni'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 Beni grew
Where Beni had 10 people in 1975, it had 40.4 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 2.8 million people in 2050. It passed a million people between 1995 and 2000.
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
Beni through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Beni in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Democratic Republic of the Congo · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Beni is the dot in colour with a ring around it. The grey dots are the other cities of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2025, 223 in all, led by Kinshasa, each drawn with an area that matches its people. Countries next door are outlines only.
Area and built-up land · km²
How much land it covers
In 2025, Beni covered 78 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 16 km² of it. That is 8 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 3 by 3 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 3.4 times its size, and its people are 4 times as many.
How to read this: pale is the whole of the city's land; the stronger square inside it is what is actually built on. The three are drawn to the same scale, so a larger square really is more land, and hatching means the year is the UN's projection rather than a count.
Of every 100 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Its share of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Of every 100 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2025, 2 lived in Beni, which is 1.9 million people.
How to read this: shrink the Democratic Republic of the Congo to 100 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Beni; 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
- 254 Minsk Belarus1,950,680
- 255 Puebla Mexico1,947,971
- 256 Freetown Sierra Leone1,935,761
- 257 N'Djaména Chad1,934,909
- 258 Beni1,923,700
- 259 Tarogong Indonesia1,917,036
- 260 San Diego United States1,915,114
- 261 Lisbon Portugal1,913,798
- 262 Bucharest Romania1,909,536
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2025
- 30 Kinshasa10,943,641
- 130 Kasaï-Oriental3,605,738
- 176 Lubumbashi2,832,853
- 258 Beni1,923,700
- 336 Kananga1,504,370
- 487 Tshikapa1,054,686
- 550 Bukavu948,948
- 574 Kisangani900,330
- 654 Goma809,601
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 Beni 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 Beni 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