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Benin City, 
Nigeria
1,845,432 people lived in Benin City in 2025. It is the 271st largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 8th largest in Nigeria.
Like every city on this site, Benin City 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 Benin City grew
Where Benin City had 10 people in 1975, it had 84.7 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 2.3 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: each column is one of the UN's five-yearly estimates, 1975 through 2050, and taller means more people. Where a column is hatched the year has not happened yet. The strip under the columns is the UN's own confidence in each figure, palest where it is least sure; where it is blank the city was not on the list at all.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Benin City through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Benin City in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Nigeria · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Nigeria and its 457 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is Lagos). Benin City 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, Benin City covered 396 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 127 km² of it. That is 69 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 8 by 8 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 5.6 times its size, and its people are 8.5 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 Nigeria
Its share of Nigeria
Of every 1,000 people in Nigeria in 2025, 8 lived in Benin City, which is 1.8 million people.
How to read this: 1,000 squares, one for every 1,000th person in Nigeria; the coloured squares live in Benin City. 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
- 267 Warsaw Poland1,882,756
- 268 Monrovia Liberia1,879,092
- 269 Putian China1,871,858
- 270 Port-au-Prince Haiti1,868,268
- 271 Benin City1,845,432
- 272 Isfahan Iran1,844,409
- 273 Pretoria South Africa1,836,166
- 274 Ranchi India1,819,944
- 275 Munich Germany1,815,022
In Nigeria, 2025
- 121 Owerri3,833,343
- 123 Ibadan3,720,721
- 211 Port Harcourt2,341,445
- 266 Kaduna1,890,448
- 271 Benin City1,845,432
- 305 Warri1,607,702
- 316 Uyo1,567,115
- 355 Aba1,428,069
- 367 Aboh1,374,320
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 Benin City 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 Benin City 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